{ LIBIURY OF CONGRESS. ^ 

JUNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



^f' 



DISCUSSIONS 



IN THEOLOGY 



BY 



THOMAS HI^SKiNNBR, 

PBOPESSOB IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINAKT. 




/ ci NEW YORK: 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH, 
No. 770 BEOADWAY. 
1868. 






Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year 1868, 
Bt ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH, 

in the Clerk's Ofilce of the District Court of the United States, for the 
Southern District of New York. 



EDWARD O. JENKINS, 
PRINTER AND STERKOTYPl 

20 JJortli William Street. 



i 

/-- 

I PREFACE. 

This volume is a Second Edition of the 
Miscellanies it contains. They have been col- 
lected out of Periodicals, in which at different 
times they were piinted. They have been 



Erratum. — Page 23, line 23, insert after ''miraculous," 
or having the miraculous." 






- r 

their value. The author has been induced 
to prepare the little book which embodies 
them, by a desire to give whatever of truth- 
fulness and sound teaching may be found in 
them, more emphasis and more influence than 
it might otherwise have had. 



56 






EDWARD O. JENKINS, 
PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER, 

eO North William Strett. 






PREFACE. 

This volume is a Second Edition of the 
Miscellanies it contains. They have been col- 
lected out of Periodicals, in which at different 
tiroes they were pj'inted. They have been 
carefully revised, and it is hoped, now appear 
in a better than their original form. The 
subjects of them are important, and however 
imperfectly treated in these small papers, have 
not been discussed without a deep sense of 
their value. The author has been induced 
to prepare the little book which embodies 
them, by a desire to give whatever of truth- 
fulness and sound teaching may be found in 
them, more emphasis and more influence than 
it might otherwise have had. 



CONTENTS 



I.— MIRACLES THE PROOF OF CHRISTIANITY, . 1 

II.— NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT, 39 

III.— NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT— Continued, . 57 

IV.— CHRIST PRE-EXISTENT, 73 

v.— CHRIST PREACHING TO THE SPIRITS IN 

PRISON, 99 

VI.— IMPOTENCE OF WILL: WILL-NOT A REAL 

CAN-NOT, 114 

VII.— THEORY OF PREPARATION FOR PREACHING, 131 

VIII.— DELIVERY IN PREACHING, 173 

IX.— FRAGMENTS OF THOUGHT, 206 

I. — OPTIMISM, 206 

II. — THE DIVINE PURPOSES, 211 

III. — ^MYSTERY, • 218 

IV. — HAPPINESS, 222 

v.— SIN, 226 

VT. — THE REIGN OF SIN, 231 

VII.— MERCY, 237 

VIII. — THE BEDEEMER, 244 

IX. — THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT, 251 

X. — MEDIATION, 256 

XI. — JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE, 262 

XII. — FAITH, 269 

XITI. — CHARACTER OF BELIEVERS, 275 

XIV. — TRUTH THE SAME AND ALWAYS YOUNG: THE 

OLD IN THE NEW, 283 



MIRACLES THE PROOF OF CHRISTIANITY. 

1. Side by side with the recent naturalistic ideas of 
Christianity, have come, as might have been expected, 
objections to miracles as proof of it. There is a rea- 
son why the objections and the ideas should be found 
together : the natural in the religion can have no need 
of, or affinity with, the supernatural or miraculous in the 
evidence. Hume opposed miracles because he thought, 
that admitting them, they proved Christianity ; our 
naturalists oppose them because, as they allege, they 
are unnecessary, if not a hindrance, to its proof. The 
difference is only in appearance : the naturalists agree 
with Hume in opposing miracles ; they do not really 
disagree with him as to the bearing of miracles on the 
proof of Christianity. What the naturalists call Chris- 
tianity did not in Hume's time pass under that name ; 
it would not, in itself, have been unacceptable to him, 
only he would have thought it a misnomer to call it 
Christianity. 

2. To determine whether miracles are necessary to 
the proof of Christianity — our present undertaking — 



2 MTBACLES 

the meaning of the terms must be fixed. Understand- 
ing by Christianity, a revelation distinctively and di- 
rectly from God ; and by miracles, direct works of God, 
wrought in attestation of it, our inquiry is : Are the 
latter the proper proof of the former ? Or, may Chris- 
tianity be adequately proved without miracles? A 
miracle, according to its etymology, sometimes signifies 
what is simply wonderful or marvellous ; sometimes it 
is what is supposed to be superhuman; sometimes it is 
something suijeymatural^ or out of the order, if not an 
arrest and inversion of the order of nature, and unex- 
plainable by any law, at least any known law of na- 
ture. In our use of the word, a miracle is a direct 
■work of God, performed in nature and under the 
notice of the senses, but of divine, in contradistinction 
to natural or finite force. God, indeed, is in a true 
sense the force of nature's forces ) still there are works 
which God does not, and works which he does, directly 
and personally perform ; and miracles, as we take the 
term, are divine works of the latter class. We as- 
sume, as out of question, that the testimonial miracles 
of Christianity are direct or personal works of 
God. 

We would state more precisely what we take to bo 
the true idea of revelation as actualized in Christianity. 
According to Westcott,'^ the objects of revelation are 
" things essentially existing beneath the suffering, sin, 
and disorder, which are spread over the world within 
us and without ;" and revelation itself is " the re- 
moval of the dark veil from the face of these things f 
* Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, p. 34 



THE PROOF OF GUBISlIAmTY. 3 

that is to say, if we understand him, revelation ac- 
quaints us with nothing extra-natural or out of the 
sphere of nature ; it only removes a veil from what 
exists essentially in " man and nature " — the world 
within us and without. We do not accept this view 
of the objects, or the office of revelation. The Scrip- 
ture revelation does more than remove a veil from 
things essentially existing in the world ; it acquaints 
us, by direct communication from God, with things 
not existing in the w^orld ; even the deep, the infinite 
things of God, of which, independently of this revela- 
tion, no one would have had an idea, though all the 
secrets of nature had been disclosed to him. There 
are things, indeed, presupposed and embodied in those 
of revelation, doctrines and precepts of natural reli- 
gion, facts of history, which are not peculiar to it ; 
these things do not individuate the revelation, or dis- 
tinguish it as such ; some of the distinctive things are : 
the Trinity of Persons in the unity Divine Essence ; 
the Divine-human characjter of Jesus of Nazareth ; 
the salvation of mankind by the blood and intercession 
of the Lord Jesus ] the resurrection of the same body; 
these are peculiarities of revealed religion ; they are 
not things lying under a dark veil spread over the 
face of the world, but things altogether extra-mundane^ 
having no place in man or nature, the world within 
us or without. The idea of revelation, according to 
which nothing is revealed except what previously ex- 
isted in the world under a veil, seems to Westcott " to 
be peculiarly Christian ;" we reject it, as identifying 
substantive Christianity with natural religion. 



4 MIRAGLES 

3. Our limits allow us but a word on the arguments 
against miracles. Hume contented himself with as- 
sailing their reality, or trying to make out the impossi- 
bility of proving them. Miracles, he insisted, are 
contrary " to firm and unalterable experience ;" which, 
surely, he was safe enough in saying no testimony can 
countervail.* But how did he know what he asserts 
as a fact ? Whether miracles are against all experi- 
ence, is the point in question. His task was not to 
assert, but to prove the affirmative ; a task he has 
evaded. A host of unimpeachable witnesses has 
affirmed the occurrence of miracles as a matter of their 
own experience. Hume has not discredited their 
testimony,t which, if it cannot be discredited, dis- 
proves his assumption ; he is mistaken as to the re- 
ality of the ground of his argument. — Recently it has 
been alleged in the interest of Hume's attempt, that 
the testimony for miracles can be no other than testi- 
mony to sensible events seemingly miraculous ; that 
they were really miracles, could have been to the spec- 
tators only a matter of belief, not of experience. But 
the witnesses of miracles were not the spectators of 
them only : the prime witnesses were the performers 
of them, who wrought them, as they declared, in the 

* " A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature ; and as a firm 
and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof 
against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire 
as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined." — 
Essay on Miracles, p. 160. 

f He has said, indeed, that there is not to be found in all his- 
tory any trustworthy testimony to miracles, but he has said it 
merely, {^^e Essay on Miracles, p. 163.) 



THE PROOF OF CHRISTIANITY. 5 

name, and simply as instruments in the hand of God. 
Theirs, cliiefly, is the testimony to be discredited. 
"If St. Paul did not work actual, sensible, public 
miracles, he has knowingly in these letters," says 
Paley, " borne his testimony to a falsehood." Did St. 
Paul, with his fellow-apostles and others, bear such 
testimony in fact ? 

Modern naturalists, going further than Hume, deny 
not the reality or demonstrableness only, but the 
possibility of miracles. Science, they say, has dis- 
covered that order in the world is a pure necessity, 
and absolutely inviolable ; but science can have made 
no such discovery as this, unless it has further dis- 
covered that the world is not the creature of God, or 
is independent of him ; or, in a word, that there is no 
God distinct from the world. If the world with its 
order be the creature of God, the order in it may be 
necessary and inviolable in respect of creatures, but 
surely not in respect of God himself, who is no longer 
God if he cannot destroy or change as well as estab- 
lish a certain order. If it be said that he is, by 
nature, the God of order, this, though doubtless true 
in the highest sense of the term order, does not imply 
that miracles are against order in that sense. For 
aught we know they may not be, and the assertion 
that they are, is an assertion merely. " Once believe 
that there is a God," says Paley, •' and miracles are 
not incredible." 

4. But now to our question. Assuming that mira- 
cles are both possible and real, may Christianity be 
adequately proved without them ? We take Christi- 



6 MIRACLES 

anity as a revelation in the sense already expressed. 
In any other view of it, miracles, among proofs of 
Christianity, would, as we have already intimated, be 
superfluous if not obtrusive. " Those," says Mansell, 
" who deny the existence of any special revelation of 
religious truths distinct from that general sense in 
which mere reason itself, and all that it can discover, 
are the gifts of Him from whom every good thing 
comes, are only consistent when they deny that mira- 
cles have any value as evidences of religious truth ; 
and are still more consistent when they deny that such 
works have been wrought." How gratuitous, and 
therefore how improper to work miracles in attesta- 
tion of things essentially existing in the world! To 
remove the veil, to show the things, would be to prove 
them : if they and Christianity were identical, the 
latter would doubtless be self-demonstrative apart 
from all external evidence. The truth, revealed 
through Christ, would have, as Coleridge affirms it 
has, its evidence in itself. Infinitely difi'erent is 
Christianity, according to the meaning in which our 
question takes the term. It uses the term in its own 
signification when it asks whether Christianity can be 
adequately attested without miracles. 

5. And now, first of all, let us understand what is 
an adequate attestation, a sufficient proof of Christi- 
anity? This, if we mistake not, is determinative of 
the main question. Whatever the requisite proof 
may be, one thing is certain, that Christianity is not 
sufficiently attested if its evidence does not justify and 
demand, not a persuasion of the possibility or proba- 



THE rnOOF OF CHBISTIANITT. 7 

bility, but a full undoubting assurance of the absolute 
verity of its averments : not that this assurance must 
or always does attend the evidence, which, through 
preoccupation may be neglected, or through prejudice, 
misjudged ; but that it is demanded hy the nature of 
the evidence. Christianity itself makes this demand 
of mankind : Wherever it comes it holds itself en- 
titled to immediate acceptance as true and as divine ; 
proclaims a fearful menace to unbelief, the menace of 
eternal death ; it imputes to unbelief the highest 
criminality, even that of making God himself a false 
witness ; it connects this infinite guilt with every 
degree of unbelief, so that he who believes with an 
incomplete faith is ready, with a penitence propor- 
tional to his shortcoming in faith, to cry out, with the 
father of the lunatic child : " Lord, I believe, help 
thou my unbelief." It has been said^" that the assent 
to which Christianity is entitled is not equal to that 
which we owe to the discoveries of science ] that a 
sense of probability is the utmost the former can le- 
gitimately include, while the latter must extend to a 
sense of certainty. But how inadvertent or disloyal 
to the interests of Christianity is this remark ! Well 
has Stillingfleet said, that " an assent no stronger than 
to a thing merely probable, which is that it may or 
may not be true, is not properly assent at all, but a 
suspension of our judgment till some convincing argu- 
ment be produced on either side."t But confront this 
remark with the peremptory claim of Christianity to 

* In Aids to Faith, Essay II. ♦ f Origines SaercB, vol. i., p. 222- 



8 MIRACLES 

our absolute assent. According to tliis claim, what 
is there that ought to be more certain to me than the 
truth of Christianity? Not the existence of God, or 
the existence of the world, or my own existence. 
" He who believcth not is condemned already, because 
he hath noi believed;" "he hath made God a liar." 
This fact it is that gives the answer to the question, 
as to the nature of the proof, that adequately authen- 
ticates Christianity. The assent required is surely 
not out of proportion to the proof. The measure of 
the first is not greater than the measure of the second. 
The contrary supposition charges the highest injustice 
on him who only is just and good. " If there be no evi- 
dence given sufficient to carry the minds of men beyond 
mere probability, what sin can it be in those who can- 
not be obliged to believe as true what is only dis- 
covered as probable T^ On the ground of this postu- 
late, then, let our inquiry proceed. Abstract the 
miracles, and will there be adequate proof of Christi- 
anity ? 

6. But before advancing let us name one preliminary 
more, and one bearing with decisive force on the 
decision of our question. The miracles are in fact 
innumerable, and they have never been separated from 
Christianity. Whether the proof of our religion re- 
quired miracles or not there has been no experiment 
to determine. Christianity has never existed except, 
as we may say with emphasis, in the blaze of miracles. 
Revealed religion, itself a miracle, was accompanied 
at its beginning with testimonial miracles, to which 
* Stilling fleet, vol ii., p. 222. 



THE PROOF OF CHBISTIANITY. 9 

others were added, from time to time throughout the 
whole history of its progress. What a brilliant gal- 
axy of miracles in days of old before the advent of 
Christ ! How full of splendid miracles the life-history 
of our Lord ! How is the record of the beginning and 
planting of Cliristianity studded with miracles as the 
firmament with stars ! But more, much more than 
this : miracles are not only accompaniments of Chris- 
tianicy, they are inwrought and consubstantial with it. 
" Miracles and prophecy," says Rothe, " are not ad- 
juncts appended from without to a revelation inde- 
pendent of them, but arc constitutive elements of the 
revelation itself." " The miracles in the Bible," Bol- 
ingbroke has said, " are not like those in Livy, de- 
tached pieces that do not disturb the civil history, 
which goes on very well without them. But the 
whole history is founded on them ; it consists of 
little else, and if it were not a history of them it 
would be a history of nothing." " Miracles," says 
Mansell, " are part of the moral as well as sensible 
evidences, and cannot be denied without destroying 
both kinds of evidence alike. ' That ye may know 
that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive 
sins, I say unto thee arise and take up thy couch and 
go into thine house.' ' If I with the finger of God 
cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come 
among you.' ' By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazar- 
eth, even by him, doth this man stand before you 
whole :' Let us imagine, for an instant, such words as 
these to have been uttered by one who was merely 
employing a superior knowledge of natural laws to 



10 MIRACLES 

produce a false appearance of supernatural power ; 
by an astronomer, for instance, who had predicted an 
eclipse to a crowd of savages ; or by a chemist avail- 
ing himself of his science to exhibit relative miracles 
to an ignorant people, and we shall feel at once how 
even the most natural explanation of miraculous phe- 
nomena deals the death-blow to the moral character 
of the teacher no less than to the sensible evidence of 
his mission." We see then how the miraculous enters 
essentially into the very constitution and structure of 
Christianity. In fact, it can no more be separated 
from either the intrinsic or the testimonial, the moral 
or sensible evidence of Christianity, than color from 
the rainbow, or light from the rays of the sun. 
Whether, then, miracles were or were not necessary, 
they have never been wanting. In number, almost 
without number, they do, in fact, attest Christianity. 
And this decides one thing, and it is the only thing 
needed to justify the high claim of our religion, this, 
namely, that, taking the evidence of Christianity as it 
in reality is, there can be no question as to its suffi- 
ciency ; with its miracles it is sufficient, whether it 
would or would not be without them. There is no 
ground of certainty if there be none in this evidence : 
it is no less infallible than the character of God. 
The presence of miracles is the presence of Glod him- 
self as a Deponent. Unbelief in Christianity does, 
indeed, make God a false witness : there is no deeper 
criminality. " When He is come, He will reprove the 
world of sin, because they believe not on me." 

7. But tliough miracles arc in fact inseparable 



THE PROOF OF CHRISTIANITY. H 

from the evidences of Christianity, their absence may 
be imagined ; and there are those who, as apologists 
for Christianity, say they would prefer their absence, 
and would fain eliminate them, if they could ; and 
groundless and purposeless as our question may now 
seem, the cause of Christianity, as claiming to be a 
revelation directly from God, is staked on the decision 
of it. The answer to this question tests the natural- 
istic view of revealed religion. If there is no necessity 
for the miraculous in the evidence, it is because there 
is nothing miraculous in the religion : in our sense of 
the term it is not a revelation. Away with miracles, 
means, away with a so-called miraculous revelation. 
The inquiry whether Christianity may not be proved 
without miracles, is virtually the inquiry whether 
essential Christianity may not be resolved into na- 
turalism. Let us then proceed. 

8. If Christianity can be proved apart from testi- 
monial miracles, it must be either by the self-evident 
truthfulness of its substantive or constitutive elements j 
or by its moral evidence ; or by its proper effects ; 
or lastly, its collateral evidences, so-called, in counter- 
distinction to miracles, will suffice to prove it. We 
are to inquire whether, ivitliout any presupposition or 
aid of the miraculous^ sufficient evidence may be de- 
rived from these sources. 

Is Christianity its own witness through its indi- 
viduality as a revelation, or its constitutive elements ? 
" Evidences of Christianity !" says Coleridge, " I am 
weary of the word." " The truth revealed through 
Christ has its evidence in itself." Let us patiently 



12 MIRACLES 

inquire as to the fact concerDing this : Has Christi- 
anity its evidence m itself? We have distinguished, 
in Christianity, between what it has in common with 
natural religion, and what is distinctively its own. 
The present question has no reference to the former ; 
so far as that is concerned, the evidence is in itself; 
but it is no part of the evidence of Christianity, as 
such, being no part, distinctively, of Christianity it- 
self. It is in respect to the latter that we ask, does 
it, apart from miracles, or by inere self -evidence, assert 
its own truth ? The things concerning which we in- 
quire, whether they are self-evident or not, are of the 
class including the following : That the Eternal Word 
was made flesh in the Person of Jesus ; that the death 
of Jesus was the redemption of the world ; that Jesus 
is the Almighty Ruler and Judge of the world ; that 
the dead will be raised by him at the last day : are 
these things, independently of testimony, true to the 
reason of mankind ? The question gives its own an- 
swer. " Nothing," says Dr. Hodge, " in the appre- 
hension of rationalists, can be more absurd than that 
the blood of the cross can remove sin." " We preach 
Christ crucified," said Paul, " to the Jews a stumbling- 
block, and to the Greeks foolishness." The Gospel 
certainly never made its way by recommending itself 
to the intuitive consciousness, or the natural reason, 
of man, apart from external evidences of its truth. No 
more palpably untrue assertion could be made than that 
Christianity, in its supernatural peculiarities, has its 
evidence in itself, meaning thereby that it lias no need 
of external proof ^' There is nothing,'' says Calvin, 



THE PBOOF OF GURISIIANITY. 13 

•' that is more at variance with liuman reason than 
this article of our faith (the resurrection of the body). 
For who but God alone could pursuade us that bodies 
which are now liable to corruption, will, after having 
rotted away, or after they have been consumed by 
fire, or torn in pieces by wild beasts, not only be re- 
stored entire, but in a greatly better condition ? Do 
not all our apprehensions of things reject this as a 
thing fabulous, nay, the greatest absurdity in the 
world?" Truly, only God himself, bearing witness 
directly to the truth of Christianity, could justify or 
warrant belief in it. Reason, nature itself, demands 
that God himself, by supernatural works, or some 
equivalent means, attest a supernatural revelation, 
such as Christianity claims to be. They are its 
natural and proper proofs . " I should not be a 
Christian," said St. Augustine, "but for miracles." 
Except for miracles, there would not have been sin 
in not believing on Jesus Christ. " If I had not done 
among them the works which none other man did, 
they had not had sin." Claiming to be the Messiah, 
it behooved our Lord to authenticate His claim by 
miracles — preannounced notes of Messiahship — which, 
if He had not wrought, the Jews, in reverence of the 
prophetic Scriptures, ought to have rejected Him. 
Let us inquire, then, of those who say that Christi- 
anity has its evidence in itself, what they mean by this 
language. Taking Christianity, with its concreted 
testimonial miracles, it has its evidence in itself, and 
witnesses in its own behalf, as the sun does for himself, 
by the light and heat which he sheds through the 



14 MIRACLES 

world ; but apart from the evidence of miracles, ought 
it not to be discredited ? 

9. It is demonstrated, it has been said, by its moral 
evidence, or ethical excellency. Is this so ? We 
have seen that the moral in the evidence is, in fact, 
interblended and consubstantiated with the miracu- 
lous ; but still it is urged that the moral, of itself, and 
without need of the miraculous, demonstrates the truth 
of Christianity. The ethics of Christianity stamp it, 
beyond all question, as Divine. And as a general 
fact, is it not the ethical influence, or the moral evi- 
dence of Christianity, that, as the objective cause, 
actually produce faith in men ? — Be it so — we assent 
not only, but affirm and insist. It cannot be denied 
that Christianity, to one susceptible of the specific 
impressions from it, does witness for itself, does de- 
monstratively assert its divinity, by its ethical peculi- 
arity. In such a type, and with such resplendence, 
has the ethical element been developed in Christianity, 
as to make it an absolute Unique in the earth j and 
challenge for it, wherever it is known, the assent of 
the world, as a miraculous revelation. And this evi- 
dence it truly is, that in every case prevails, in actually 
gaining men's assent to Christianity, so far as it is 
gained in truth. None, at least, become true believers 
while they are insensible to the moral evidence, the 
ethical or spiritual excellency of the Gospel. All the 
evidences pour their force into the moral, or become 
inoralized, so to speak, when that impress is given to 
the susceptible heart, which is the just counterpart, in 
man, of objective Christianity. To that spiritual dis- 



THE PllOOF OF CHRISTIANITY. 15 

cernment, in which faith has its upspring and being, 
all the things of the Spirit of God are, preeminently? 
ethical things ; — permeated and filled with the ful- 
ness of ethical power and excellency. Well does 
Edwards, resolve " a spiritual and saving conviction 
of the truth and reality of the things revealed in the 
word of God " into " a sense of the divine excellency 
(the moral glory) of these things." Nevertheless the 
evangelical morality, that form of morality which 
constitutes the moral evidence and asserts the truth 
of Christianity, so far from being without the miracu- 
lous, has the miraculous in fact, as its suppositum and 
ground. It is a form or type of morality, taken al- 
together from the contact and intercourse of the 
principle of morality with the miraculously attested 
wonders of redemption. The moral evidence of Chris- 
tianity, distinctively, is not its embodiment of morality 
in the abstract, or of morality in so far as it is com- 
mon between Christianity and natural religion, but 
that peculiar and ineffably glorious type of morality, 
which consists in the concretion of the ethical element 
in the miraculous facts of the great mystery of Godli- 
ness : God manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, 
seen of angels, preached unto the nations, believed on 
in the world, received up into glory. It could not be 
known that Christianity is Divine or truthful in its 
claims to divinity from morality unmodified by influ- 
ences from its own facts and doctrines : no such exhi- 
bition or enforcement of morality could avail, in any 
degree, to prove the Trinity in God, or the incarnation 
of the "Word, or the atonement, or the resurrection. 



16 MIRACLES 

111 order to be demonstrative by its moral evidence, 
Christianity with its supernatural wonders, must come 
itself into the sphere of morality, and take a form of 
morality from itself, and express itself in that form ; 
that is to say, produce a morality distinctively Chris- 
tian; or such as has Christianity, with its miracles, for 
its origin and base. It is divinely revealed and at- 
tested Christian truth, that entering into the ethical 
sphere, makes all things there new, giving every prin- 
ciple a new illustration, and every precept a new 
exposition and a new motive, and making every man 
who becomes an example of it, a new creature — this 
is the moral evidence which demonstrates Christianity. 
It has its breath and being in the miracles ; take 
them away, and the evidence goes with them. Apart 
from these, the ethical superiority of Christianity is, 
so far, to its praise, but does not demonstrate its claims 
to a divine origin. 

10. Next, is there proof of Christianity from its 
effects, or actual efficiency on mankind, apart from 
miracles ? We do not ask whether this evidence is 
demonstrative, but whether the influence of miracles 
is to be excluded from it. The evidence is demonstra- 
tive: the tree is known by its fruits — Christianity 
meets the infinite wants of man ; it recovers him from 
the dominion of sin ; it creates him anew in the image 
of God ; it is the power of God unto salvation to every 
one who believes in it. Here truly is the crowning 
evidence of the truth of Christianity, and it is evidence 
which Christianity will always be multiplying to 
itself. But the present question is, Does this evidence 



THE PROOF OF CHBISTIANITY. 17 

imply that miracles may be dispensed with ? And the 
answer to it is, that the evidence is the very fruitage of 
miracles. Whence that efi&cacy of Christianity which 
supplies this evidence ? What is this efficacy but 
that of a wondrous miracle, or collection of miracles, 
enshrined in countless witnessing miracles ? Would a 
Christianity, so called, denuded of the miraculous, 
have had the same efficacy? Take away this element 
from the Gospel, and would it still be the perfect 
satisfaction of human need, the power of God unto 
salvation ? 

11. As yet, then, we have no proof of Christianity, 
apart from miracles. May it not, nevertheless, be 
sufficiently proved without them, by its collateral evi- 
dence? We have already answered this question. 
Christianity has evidence of this kind of an immense 
amount, in which apparently or distinctively, there is 
nothing of the miraculous. " It has pleased the Di- 
vine Author of our religion," says Mansell, "to fortify 
liis revelation with evidence of various kinds, appeal- 
ing with different degrees of force to various minds, 
and to the same mind at different times.'' In the 
words of Butler, "the evidence of Christianity 
is a long series of things reaching as it seems 
from the beginning of the world to the present 
time, of great variety and compass." Is there not 
in this series of things evidence enough to prove 
Christianity independently of the miraculous portion 
of it ? Butler, who ascribes great weight to this evi- 
dence, "consisting of things not reducible to the heads, 
either of miracles or the completion of prophecy,'' 



18 MIRACLES 

still, wHle making these two the direct and funda- 
mental proofs, adds that those others (the collateral 
proofs), however considerable they are, ought neve7' to 
he urged aimrt from the direct proofs, hut to he always 
joined loitli tliemy Why should the collateral proofs 
never be urged apart from the direct ones, but always 
be joined with them ? For two palpable reasons : 
first, because, if the collateral proofs could exist, 
apart from the direct, they would not be in themselves 
or in their influence, equivalent to the direct. They 
would not be, as God himself directly deposing to the 
truth of Christianity, so as to make unbelief an im- 
peachment of the veracity of God : the evidence of 
Christianity must be this, or equivalent to this ; mir- 
acles are the thing itself, the collateral proofs are 
neither the thing nor its equivalent. What they 
would amount to by themselves as demanding assent, 
what measure of assent they would call for, or justify, 
if perfectly appreciated, we cannot determine; but 
the very fact, if it were a fact, that such miraculous 
matters as those of substantive Christianity had no 
miraculous attestation, would, as we have seen, apart 
from posterior requisitions, be such a presumption 
against its truth, as no evidence could overcome. 
Reason — nature itself, would, to the last, require that 
attestation. Christianity, without it, would be in- 
credible. — But secondly, the collateral evidences should 
not be urged apart from the direct or miraculous, be- 
cause separate from the latter they have, and can 
have, in fact, no existence. The collateral evidences, 
like every thing in Christianity, had their origin and 



THE PRODF OF CHRISTIANITT. 19 

source in the miraculous, arc an outflow from it, and 
can in reality be no more separated from it, or used 
in proof against its necessity, than beams of sunlight 
be separated from, and then made an argument against, 
the necessity of the body of the sun. It is owing to 
miracles originally and determinantly, that the collat- 
eral evidences are what they are. We know not 
what would have been the course of things in the 
history of Christianity, had it not originated and 
started in miracles : enough that we knov/ what was 
the fact: the success of Christianity, the conversion 
of the Roman empire, the lives of the saints, the testi- 
mony of the noble army of martyrs, the progress of 
civilization and the arts under Christian institutions 
and society,- the whole of that long series of things 
reaching from the beginning of the world to the pre- 
sent time, wiiich comprehends all the collateral proofs 
of Christianity, — instead of implying that miracles 
arc not necessary as direct proofs of it, infer the re- 
ality, if not the necessity also of miracles, as certainly 
as the fruit and foliage of a tree infer the reality of 
the tree. Well, therefore, has Butler said, the col- 
lateral should never be urged apart from the direct 
proofs of Christianity, but be always joined with 
them. Most fitly and undeniably has this other im- 
portant word been spoken by the same great author : 
" Revelation itself is miraculous, and miracles are the 
proof of it." The collateral evidences, apart from 
miracles, are not the proof of it, and as such should 
never be urged or relied on. 

12. But after all, how are miracles the supreme, 



20 MIRACLES . 

ultimate, decisive Test of the truthfulness of Christi- 
anity, since miracles themselves are amenable to a 
test? Be it that they arc decisive, that they give 
absolute cei'tainty, vs^hen once their genuineness is 
beyond doubt: still if there are true miracles, there 
are also false ones ; and there is evidence which, if it 
be against a miracle, no miracle can countervail ; that, 
nam.ely, of self-evident truth and goodness. We know 
from Scripture itself (see Deut. xiii. 1-11) that if the 
object or purpose of a miracle be wrong, the testimony 
of the purpose against the miracle is stronger than 
the testimony of the miracle, or any miracle can be, in 
the interest of the purpose. And does it not hence 
follow that miracles, instead of proving Christianity, 
are dependent on Christianity for their own proof? 
that if we know the miracles to be true, we know 
this, because we know by antecedent and higher evi- 
dence, the religion to be true ? This argument seems 
to have convinced some persons that the defence of 
Christianity is com.plete, independent of the testimony 
of miracles, and is rather impeded than facilitated 
by it. 

13. But the argument is a fallacy. It assumes as 
true in an absolute sense, what is true only in a certain 
case. Because a miracle, so called, wrought for a bad 
purpose, is already condemned by its purpose, it con- 
cludes that every miracle depends for its credibility 
on knowledge of its purpose ; or, in ignorance of its 
purpose, is necessarily undeterminative as to its own 
genuineness. It cannot assert its own reality as a 
miracle, a personal or direct work of God, unless it is 



THE PROOF OF CHUiaTIAI^ITY. 21 

known to what intent it is wrought. The argument 
is, that since a bad purpose condemns an alleged 
miracle performed in its favor, no miracle, irrespective 
of acquaintance with its purpose, can, as a miracle, 
authenticate itself. The sophistry is manifest. It is 
a mere truism, that no miracle can countervail the 
contradictory testimony of a had purpose or object ; 
it is simply asserting that a true miracle cannot be 
wrought in attestation of a had purpose; that God 
cannot act, cannot exert his power in the interest of 
moral evil ; that is to say, cannot deny or undeify 
Himself. But does this imply that He can never act 
and authenticate the act as His own, unless it is al- 
ready known why or to what intent the act is per- 
formed ? Must we know what God intends by His 
works, before we can be certain that the works are 
indeed His ? Can He do no works capable of differ- 
encing themselves absolutely from the works of His 
creatures ? We know that He can have no bad de- 
sign ; we know that He must have some design, not 
unworthy of Himself ; but must He acquaint us with 
His designs, before He can perform works which shall 
be able to assert themselves as distinctively His own ? 
It is true that we know not the limit of finite power ; 
but cannot infinite power go beyond that limit, and 
there put itself forth in works after its own kind, 
which no finite power shall be able to equal, or suc- 
cessfully counterfeit ? And by such self-authenticated 
works, cannot God authenticate a revelation which, 
as such, could not otherwise be adequately attested ? 
What if we knew no more as to the purpose of Chris- 



22 MIBACLES 

tianity than that it is not a bad one, or one unworthy 
of the Deity? might not Gocl, without acquainting us 
further with its object, seal it as a revelation, by in- 
contestable miracles ? May this be denied, without 
limiting the Holy One ? 

14. But we have been putting the matter at its 
greatest disadvantage. Our knowledge is not alto- 
gether negative as to the purpose of Christianity ; its 
purpose is worthy of its miracles, and required them 
for its fulfilment ; and whatever may be said of a sup- 
posed necessity or duty of testing or proving miracles, 
here are miracles which are their own proof. Ad- 
mitting that the Scripture miracles were really 
wrought, we may as well deny that God made the 
world, as deny that He was their author. If the genu- 
ineness of some of them, apart from the rest, and from 
the system to which they all belong, might seem to 
be questionable, yet, as a whole, once admit their re- 
ality, and the possibility of reasonable doubt as to 
their authorship is excluded. If the plagues of Egypt, 
the giving of the manna, the crossing of the Jordan, 
the regression of the sun, the swimming of the iron, 
the walking on the sea, the resurrection of Lazarus, 
the resurrection of our Lord — if these, with the rest 
of the Scripture miracles, were matters of fact, he who, 
admitting them as such, does not believe in the relig- 
ion which they attest, does indeed charge God Himself 
with bearing false witness. It is not because these 
miracles do not assert themselves to be miracles indeed, 
that there is held to be a necessity for superior or 
antecedent proof. The Creation itself is not more self- 



THE PROOF OF CHRISTIAmTT. 23 

evidently of God, than the testimonial miracles of 
Christianity. 

15. Miracles, then — untestable, because tliere is 
nothing to test them by — miracles wrought, it is cer- 
tain, for no unworthy purpose, but not dependent on 
a knowledge of their purpose for proof of their reality, 
are the direct, fundamental, indispensable proofs of 
Christianity. Whatever is peculiar in Christianity, 
would never have been known had it not been reveal- 
ed, and for evidence of its truth, or its demonstrative 
certitude, rests at last on testimonial miracles. Ex- 
cept as ultimately assured by these divine vouchers, I 
have no sufficient ground for rational belief as to any 
thing distinctively or peculiarly Christian. I do not 
know that there are more Persons than one to whom 
Deity belongs, or that Jesus was God, or that His 
death was an atonement for the sins of mankind, or 
that the dead will be raised by Him ; I do not know 
these things by intuition, or because, independently of 
external proofs, they are true to my reason ; I know 
them because God, having revealed them by His Holy 
Spirit, has sealed that revelation by evidence either 
in itself directly miraculous, first, last, and midst, as 
its ground. 

16. After all, however, it may be objected that if 
Christianity behooved to certifyitselfbymiracles, it be- 
hooved to continue miracles. To the masses of mankind, 
for whom Christianity was chiefly intended, historical 
miracles, as far as their ability to verify them is con- 
cerned, are as nothing. What, to the common people, 
as to power of verifying them to themselves, are events 



24 MIBACLES 

of the far distant past? Moreover, as a general fact, 
it is notorious that men do not become Christians from 
personal examination of the testimony of miracles, or 
the historical evidences of Christianity. This objec- 
tion is virtually answered already. The miracles, 
thougli performed ages ago, are present, and live in all 
the ages, and even to the nnlearned and children, wit- 
ness for Christianity to-day, not less decisively and 
strongly than they did at first. The Scripture mir- 
acles are not as other events of the past, in respect of 
the antiquating influence of time ; on the contrary, 
they and those events, are in this respect a contrast to 
one another. The miracles were not left, like com- 
mon occurrences, to the accidents of tradition, or 
chance, or human history ; they were not detached, 
isolated, inorganic things ; they all pertained to one 
whole, with every part of which, as with the whole, 
they were co-organized, interconnected, and, as it 
were, interfused. The miracles of Christianity are, in 
fact, as we have already said, among its integrant, 
constitutive elements ; they live in its life ; they live 
in the Scriptures, in the Church, and in the holy ex- 
amples and confession of members of the Church : in 
preaching, in the sacraments, in all the memorials and 
ordinances of Christianity, their witnessing presence 
and power are conserved and felt. Besides, the mir- 
acles of power which attest Christianity, are like 
Christianity itself, and whatever essentially belongs 
to it, is perpetually quickened and rejuvenated by an- 
other species of miracles, comprised in the completion 
of the prophecies — miracles of knowledge, which are 



THE PROOF OF CHBISTIAlSflTY. 25 

eontmually being accomplished, as time advances in 
its course. These direct and fundamental proofs of 
Christianity, in their demonstrative force, enter into 
every part and fibre of the great organism whicli they 
authenticate as divine, and at once verify and are ver- 
ified by it. In this sense, it is true that the religion 
asserts the miracles, as well as the miracles the relig- 
ion. The proofs of Christianity, direct and collateral, 
'" make up,'' to use the admirable words of Butler, "all 
of them together, one argument, the conviction arising 
from whicli kind of proof may be compared to what 
they call the effect in architecture, or other works of 
art — a result from a number of things so and so dis- 
posed, and taken into one view." The miracles are in 
the view with all the rest, attesting all, and in and 
through all, attesting and asserting themselves ; and 
in their proper influence, no le>s, perhaps even more 
effective, on the whole, at this day, than they were to 
many who saw them performed. There is no need of 
new miracles ; indeed, they might be a disadvantage, 
and, after a short time, would, in effect, cease to be 
miracles. If the old miracles, certified as they are to 
all, do not convince men, new ones doubtless would 
also fail to do it. " If they hear not Moses and the 
prophets " — if Moses and the prophets, with the mir- 
acles whicli attested and still attest their mission, arc 
disregarded by them — "neither would they be per- 
suaded though one rose from the dead." Greater, 
doubtless, to us, is the advantage from the Scripture 
miracles, greater as they lie together in the one view 
of which we have spoken ; more decisive as evidencing 
2 



26 MIRACLES 

the truth of revealed religion, than would be the repe- 
tition of fresh miracles every day. Miracles prove 
Christianity, but they may fail to make converts to 
it. Referring to the too common results of miracles, 
Pascal has said, " the purpose of miracles is not to 
convert, but to condemn.'' 

17. The objection owes what of force it may seem 
to have, to great indiscrimination ; it does not distin- 
guish between what the evidence of Christianity be- 
hooves to be in itself, and the way and the degree in 
which it becomes effective in individual converts — be- 
tween the necessity of its having a sufficient grouud 
for its authoritative demand for faith, and the mea- 
sures and workings of faith, on the part of those in 
whom the demand is met. To make the former com- 
plete, the specific testimony of miracles is necessary ; 
the latter, though the influence of miracles, as before 
explained, is never wanting in it, vary indefinitely 
with different persons. In no one is faith commensur- 
ate with the objective demand for it ; nor is it alike as 
to its origin and advances in all. St. Augustine, but 
for miracles historically verified, to and by himself, 
could not have been a Christian ; the generality do 
not distinctively feel the necessity of miracles, or for- 
mally recognize their specific influence and function as 
the supreme Test and proof of Christianity. They 
also, in a true sense, would not believe, but for mir- 
acles, but it is the miraculous, as integrant and inter- 
fused in the whole of the evidence, and pervading the 
essence of Christianity, that their faith apprehends 
and rests in. It is the " one aro^ument" of which But- 



THE PROOF OF CHRISTIANITY. 27 

ler speaks, "made up of all the proofs taken together," 
the conviction arising from which he compares to 
what they call the effect in architecture, or other works 
of art. This it is that generally produces faith, when 
it becomes a personal reality. Different minds may 
be variously affected by it ; some more by one part, 
some more by another ; some in a larger, some in a 
smaller measure; but in every case, the efficiency of 
the whole, as such, is felt, and the result is the product 
of the whole. It is so from the fact that Christianity, 
with its proofs, is a single, living organism, each part 
of which interconnects itself with every other, giving 
every other part an influential, life-producing, if not a 
distinctly recognized presence. 

18. This distinction between the fundamental ne- 
cessity of miracles, as outward proofs or seals of testi- 
mony, and the influence of these and the other evi- 
dences in the genesis of faith, or in producing faith, 
in different persons, solves at once the objection 
before us. It was needful that the demonstration 
of Christianity should be absolute, irrespective of 
men's belief or disbelief; thus only could be jus- 
tified its absolute claim to belief, and its denun- 
ciation of all unbelief. How it was to fare in the 
world, what fruit its evidence was to produce in the 
minds of men, or which part of the evidence was to be 
first or most effective, or what in the beginning and 
progress of a life of faith was to have ascendant pow- 
er, depended on the different individualities of men, 
and the contingencies of time and circumstances. 

19. On this point, it is to be further and distinctly 



28 IIIBAGLES 

remembered, and strongly accented, that in every case 
of the subjective demonstration of Christianity, there 
is another agency concerned besides that of the out- 
ward evidence. It is not of themselves alone that 
men believe : faith is the gift of God. It is the in- 
ward demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that 
makes the external demonstration fruitful. Amidst 
the full effulgence of outward evidence, "if thine eye 
be evil, thy whole body will be full of darkness." 
Without the subjective prerequisites, — to use the words 
of Coleridge, without "that predisposing warmth, 
which renders the understanding susceptible of the 
specific impressions from the history, and from all 
other outward seals of testimony," the whole of the 
evidence, collateral and miraculous, internal and ex- 
ternal, will be without avail, except to condemn, as 
Pascal said of the miracles, in particular. And it is 
also certain, and equally essential as bearing on the 
topic before us, that where the inward witnessing of 
the Spirit has place ; where, to adopt Coleridge's lan- 
guage again, there is " a true efficient conviction of a 
moral truth — the creation of a new heart, which col- 
lects the energies of a man's whole being in the focus 
of the conscience," where there " is emphatically, that 
leading of the Father, without which no man can come 
to Christ," there the dominion of the entire external 
evidence is actualized. Christianity, now, has all its 
evidences at command, and they do their work. The 
miracles, whether distinctively verified or not, work 
together with all the rest. There is nothing now 
that does not bear witness to Christianity. ^N'ature 



THE PROOF OF CBBISTIANITY. 20 

itself, under the power of this inward demonstration, 
this " one essential miracle," asserts the Supernatu- 
ral : 

" Nature is Christian : preaches to mankind, 
, And bids dead matter aid us in our creed." 

20. On the whole, we are brought by the discussion 
we have been engaged in, to the conclusion that ob- 
jections to miracles as proofs of Christianity presup- 
pose and in fact have as their ground objections to 
veritable Christianity itself As naturalism cannot 
but make objections to miracles as the proper proof of 
religion, so, reciprocally, when there are these objec- 
tions, the religion adhered to, if any, is that of natural- 
ism. An objector to miracles as proof of doctrine, 
cannot be an intelligent believer in such a doctrine as 
that of a plurality of Persons in the God-head, or of 
the two Natures in Christ, or of the resurrection of the 
dead. He ought not to call himself a Christian ; not 
even a ?^6'<9-christian, unless he intend by the prefix to 
deny that he is a real Christian at all. The only re- 
ligion which, after discarding miracles as proofs, has 
any ground of credibility in it, is tliat which, in the 
words of the Westminster Review^ has its attestation 
"in the essential unity and self consistency of our 
moral and spiritual nature, opening more and more 
with the progressive education of the race, to a con- 
sciousness of the fundamental laws on which it rests, 
and which we learn partly through mutual intercourse 
and sympathy, partly through the awakening influence 
of superior minds, on those that are less developed and 
advanced," We T^ould not press the inexorable con- 



r30 MIBAVLES 

sequences of a theory on those who shrink from them ; 
all who disparage miracles, are not, we must hope, ab- 
solute naturalists, yet we cannot but stand in doubt, 
if not of the substantial loyalty to the cause of Chi-is- 
tian truth, at least of the logical consistency, of those 
who say they would rather have Christianity without 
than with the miracles, or that the credibility of mir- 
acles depends on doctrine rather than the credibility 
of doctrine on miracles. Nor can vf e adopt the for- 
mula, as applicable to a supernatural revelation, that 
" the miracle must witness for itself and the doctrine 
must witness for itself, and then the first is capable of 
witnessing for the second."^ We take Eiitler as com- 
plete ; Revelation itself is miraculous and miracles are 
its proof. If miracles do indeed witness for them- 
selves, that is to say, assert themselves, demonstra- 
tively, to be direct works of God, they can witness for 
that which to us, through our ignorance, does not wit- 
ness for itself, if by the will of God, they are wrought 
for that end. Eevelation, apart from testimonial mir- 
acles, does not witness for itself to us '. in this isolation 
it would not be true to human reason. The proper 
statement is : ^' the miracle must witness for itself; the 
doctrine, apart from the miracle, does not witness for 
itself ; the first, by itself, must witness for the second.'' 
In the evidence of miracles all other evidence has its 
ground and its beginning. Without miracles Chris- 
tianity is indemonstrable. 

21. Before dismissing the subject we would repro- 
duce, for the purpose of emphasising with a speoific 
* Trenoli. 



THE PROOF OF CHRISTIANITY. 31 

reference, wliat lias already been expressed with some 
particularity as to tlie measure or fulness of the assent 
demanded hy ChrlstLaniiy. What we would further 
say on this point is, that, while this assent indicates 
the nature of the proof of Christianity, it indicates at 
the same time the proper task of a Christian apolo- 
gist. Whatever may be the measure or form of men's 
belief or disbelief of Christianity, there can, as we 
have urged, be no question that the assent which with 
infinite authority it challenges of all, is that of unqual- 
ified, absolute, prompt assurance. Most assuredly 
therefore he who sets himself to defend Christianity, 
undertakes, if he knows what he is doing, to make out 
a sufiiciency in its evidences to produce, not a convic- 
tion of the probability or bare credibility, but a con- 
viction of the absolute certainty of its truth. He must 
present evidence proportional to the assent required. 
If he does not do this, his attempt is a failure. If he 
only gives reason for a preponderant conviction, a 
balance of probability, in favor of Christianity, or for 
an assent short of a full sense of the certainty of its 
truth, he has not defended Christianity; he has at best 
only approximated a defence of it. Without contro- 
versy Christianity cannot be defended, if its evidence 
be not in itself and to a just appreciation of it, abso- 
lutely demonstrative. The claims of Christianity to 
positive, undoubting belief, cannot be otherwise justi- 
fied. " If," says Stillingfleet, '' there be no evidences 
given sufficient to carry the minds of men beyond mere 
probability, what sin can it be in them to disbelieve 
who cannot be obliged to believe as true what is only 



32 MIRACLES 

discovered as probable?" Yet a recent writer"-^ on 
the study of the evidences has said that to require cer- 
tainty as the just result of the evidence of Christian- 
ity, is to require an assent out of proportion to the 
evidence : as if there miglit be evidence greater than 
the direct testimony of God. And have not defences 
of Christianity, so called, works on the evidences, too 
often contented themselves witli this idea as the ut- 
most which the evidence can extend to ? And why, 
but from not thinking with Butler, or forgetting what 
he has said, that the collateral evidences ought never 
to be urged apart from the direct, the miraculous 
ones, but to be always joined with them ? The col- 
lateral evidences, by themselves, would not warrant 
the assent demanded by Christianity ; but keep the two 
kinds of evidences always united, let the witnessing 
virtue of miracles be as it is in truth retained in every 
part of the evidence ; let all the evidence involve and 
rest upon miracles as its substratum, what then, as to 
the nature, the measure of the assent demanded by it? 
Does the evidence then come short of substantiating 
its claim to a sense of certainty, as its proper counter- 
part in man ? Let men apprehend this as the fact re- 
specting the evidence, and ought they to be less cer- 
tain of the truth of Christianity than of that of natural 
science, or of the existence of the world, or of their 
own existence ? In the words of Stillingfleet, we ask, 
" can there be greater evidence that a testimony is in- 
fallible, than that it is the testimony of God Him- 
self?" Let us not disparage the books on the evi- 
* Aids to Faith. 



THE PROOF OF CHRISTIANITT. 33 

deuces ; there are among books few of greater power ; 
they triumphantly refute all objections ; they are vic- 
torious in all controversies ; they do completely what 
tliey undertake to do ; they overwhelm infidelity with 
its logical inconsistencies and absurdities; but after 
all, what for the most part have they achieved or aim- 
ed at in the battle of the evidences, but just to 
show the bare credibility of the religion attested by 
them? When a spiritual man, after pondering, doubt- 
less not without edification and delight, the profound 
and masterly treatises of the apologists, comes into 
the presence of the great Object itself, in whose inter- 
est they labor so well, and looks directly upon the 
Miracle Christianity, encompassed by countless testi- 
monial miracles, how feeble is language to express the 
difference of which he now becomes conscious, between 
the title of Christianity to assent, and the measure of 
assent which these works contend for ? And whence 
the difference, if not from inappreciation of the place 
and position of miracles in the evidence ? It is in 
two respects with the evidence of Christianity, as with 
that of the being of God ; both are alike demonstrative 
in asserting the reality of their objects, and both alike 
unheeded or rejected, or dimly seen, even by the prin- 
ces of human wisdom. 

22. We add one remark. Is not a reassertion of 
the miraculous in the evidence of revealed religion an 
especial desideratum of the times? If it be possible, 
should not the Scripture miracles be made to reappear 
as living realities, before the eyes of this generation ? 
Otherwise where before long will be faith in revela- 



34 MIRACLES 

tion? Natural religion, even, seems to be standing 
" a tiptoe/' ready to forsake tlie spliere of religious 
philosophy. What more notorious, than that the re- 
ligious philosophy of the day is mainly pantheistic ? 
"It is an admitted fact," said Isaac Taylor some years 
since, " that already all, or nearly all, educated men 
from end to end of continental Europe, those of the 
Anglo-Saxon race alone excepted, are either open 
pantheists, or are kept from avowing themselves to be 
so, by motives of conventional propriety, or of policy.'' 
The Anglo-Saxons themselves are becoming unstead- 
fast in belief in a Personal God. Men of high culture, 
English and American, are coming to the conclusion 
that there is no Divine Being different from the world, 
and nothing in a proper sense supernatural. Not 
many of these as yet profess themselves to be pantheists, 
but leading minds among them employ reasonings and 
forms of expression, which involve pantheism incAdt- 
ably, and not obscurely or indirectly. It may be 
traced too perceptibly in some of the recent review- 
articles. Professor Powell tells us that " to attempt 
to reason from law to volition, from order to active 
power, from universal reason to distinct personality, 
from design to self-existence, from intelligence to in- 
finite perfection, is in reality to adopt grounds of 
argument and speculation entirely beyond those of 
strict philosophic inference." Pantheism on a large 
and increasing scale is tlie manifest goal to which 
modern thinking on religion is tending. The fact is 
on all sides seen and confessed. It is beginning to be 
felt beyond the educated classes ; the people at large 



THE PROOF OF CHRISTIANITY. 35 

are becoming more or less acquainted and pleased 
with pantheistic speculations. What is to be done ? 
Something surely besides what has been or what is 
being done. The means now and hitherto used have 
failed even to check the progress of the deadly error ; 
it was never more triumphant than at the present 
moment. To what other means may we look ? Shall 
we expect new thcophanies, new manifestations of the 
supernatural and the miraculous, to confound the 
naturalism on all sides so predominant ? What were 
this but to make incomplete or transitory the original 
attestation of Christianity ; to make obsolete or in- 
valid all the miracles both of the Old and Ncav Testa- 
ments ? What were it, moreover, but to make void 
our own higliest responsibility and privilege; to cease 
from personal dignity and worth; to distrust and 
count as nothing the indwelling power and grace of 
the Holy Spirit; in short, to require unnecessary mira- 
cles ; that is, in principle, to put miracles among com- 
mon things ; to make them indeed miracles no longer? 
This were virtually to become pantheists ourselves. 
Still the living reality, the influential presence of the 
miraculous in the evidence of Christianity, the just 
antitheton of naturalistic tendencies and successes, — 
this is clearly indicated and imperatively demanded, 
as their proper remedy. Never more than in this our 
day, should the "City of our God" be known 
and read of men by its name, Jehovah-Shammah, 
THE Lord ts there. It will not be so known and 
read without direct, infallible revelations of the Divine 
Presence. " Out of Zion the perfection of beauty," 



36 MIRACLES 

the excellent glory itself must sliine, and it will not 
shine thence, except in its own proper manifestations ; 
the natural, simply, does not directly reveal, does not 
attest the Infinite or Divine. Naturalism will be 
efficiently confuted by nothing but an actual exhibi- 
tion and perception of the miraculous, the proper seal 
of God. It is far from being certain that the presence 
of the miraculous would impart that perception of it ; 
but its presence, its essential or influential presence, is 
necessary. All just religious conviction, all true piety, 
consists essentially in a sense of divinity or the mira- 
culous as at once inhering in and attesting revela- 
tion ; the central Miracle Christianity, authenticated 
as directly of God by its accompanying testimonial 
miracles. And may this sense be produced in the 
absence of its objective cause, the miraculously attested 
Miracle itself? Must not that Miracle by some means 
display itself anew ? And by what other means, since 
new miracles are not to be looked for but by reasserting, 
producing anew, the testimony of the ancient miracles? 
But how is this to be done? Is it a possibility? Can 
Christianity, after eighteen centuries, reproduce its 
miraculous attestations as at first? The question has 
been answered. Christianity, in itself, or as an objec- 
tive reality, has its first life always ; its facts, its doc- 
trines, its testimony, all live in, perpetuate, and are 
perpetuated by that life : therefore nothing in substan- 
tive Christianity can become stale or obsolete ; by its 
constitutive elements, it is like its Author, in respect of 
time, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever : so it is 
in itself, and so it seems to be to every one whose 



THE PROOF OF CHRISTIANITT. 37 

understanding has been opened to understand it. To 
the eye of faith, Christianity is as novel, as wonderful 
now as it was to the disciples on the day of Pentecost. 
If in the primitive vigor and fruitfulness of faith Chris- 
tianity should reappear in the life of the Church, would 
there be any decrepitude, any wrinkle or infirmity 
of age, any trace of the wear or waste of time in its 
aspect? The doctrines, the examples, and with all 
the rest, the miracles, would they not live again, as 
before the very eyes of men?^ Would not this be 
the certain, the necessary consequence, even if to the 
miracles distinctively no special attention were drawn? 
But as the times call with such emphasis for the spe- 
cific witness of miracles, as it is specially character- 
istic of the times to disown and deny God's direct 
testimony to His revelation, so abundantly given, and 
this for the reason that His revelation itself is disbe- 
lieved — this fact would make it impossible to the 

* " Methouglit I saw, with great evidence, from the four evan- 
gelists, the wonderful works of God in giving Jesus Christ to 
save us, from His conception and birth even to His second com- 
ing to judgment ; metJiought 1 was as if I had seen Him horn, as 
if I had seen Him grow up, as if I had seen Him walk through 
this world from the cradle to the cross. . . . When I have 
considered also the truth of His resurrection, and have remem- 
bered that word, ' Touch me not, Mary,' etc., Iha/ve seen as if He 
had leaped out of the grave's mouth,' " etc. {Bimyan's Life.) 
See also Chrjsostom on Gal. iii, 1 : " It was not in the country of 
the Galatians, but in Jerusalem, that He was crucified : how then 
does he (Paul) say among you ? To demonstrate the power of 
faith, which is able to see even distant objects. And he does not 
say, ' was crucified/ but ' was painted crucified/ showing that by 
the eyes of faith they beheld more distinctly than some who 
were present and saw the transactions.'' 



38 MIRACLES 

revived Church not to have a very prominent refer- 
ence in all the workings of her life, inward and out- 
ward, in her thoughts, her prayers, her discourses, her 
books, the labors of her ministry, to the reproduction 
of the miraculous testimony, the sign-manual of God 
Himself. And the result would be sure : with corres- 
ponding prominence, the miracles would return and 
take their proper position among the evidences. The 
constancy of nature is not less to be doubted than that 
rejuvenated Christianity, novel and fresh as at first, 
with the advantage of an experience as old as time 
and not older than opulent in teachings of Divine wis- 
dom and prudence, would renew its pristine demon- 
strativeness and power ; and if still confronted by 
adversaries, of whatever number or whatever name, 
— neo-christians, naturalists, pantheists, atheists, — 
would by their opposition, however maintained, be no 
more retarded in its triumphant advances, than the 
sun is retarded in his circuit of the heavens by the 
mists and vapors of the atmos[)here. " Woe unto 
him that strivetli with his Maker. Let the potsherds 
strive with the potsherds of the earth." 



II. 

NATURE OF THE ATONEMEl^T -I. 

Nothing is more emphatically taught in Scripture,"^ 
than that "the grace of God which bringeth salvation''' 
could not have been bestowed arbitrarily, or without 
regard to principles of fitness and propriety, as to 
the MODE of procedure ; but was under the highest 
necessity of adliering to a suitable manner in ac- 
complishing its object. God, though above every 
other necessity, could not disregard His own character 
nor act in a way unworthy of Himself, as the Lord and 
Maker of all. Such a way is conceivable, but it was 
not possible, because not consistent with the essential 
perfections of the Divine Nature. It would not have 
become the Most High. 

2. It may have been well, if not necessary, on our 
account also, that respect should have been had to 
method. The way of showing favor is itself often of 
more value than all particular benefits ; indeed, essen- 
tial to the permanent value of every benefit. A family 
may have received a father's generosity in the amplest 
measures, and yet be less indebted to him for this, 

* Hfeb. ii. 10, 14, 17. Gal. iii. 21, etc. 

v*30) 



40 NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

than for his liaving always bestowed his offices of 
kindness in such a way as to make them so many in- 
stances of wisdom in himself — so many exemplary 
lessons to his household, as to the paramount value of 
character. It is often better that things in themselves 
very desirable should be left undone, rather than be 
done in an improper manner. Might not, then, 
the Divine favor towards man have proved no 
favor in the end, if God had disregarded mode in 
conferring it ? 

3. It was not only well, but absolutely indispensable 
for our sakes, that method should have been observed. 
Had not God consulted his own honor, He would 
not ultimately have benefited mankind. God is 
Himself the portion of man 5 but God dishonor- 
ing Himself were no more God. No happiness, no 
possibility of it, would be left to man, if God should 
do an unwise thing, or a thing on any account misbe- 
coming the Supreme Majesty of heaven and earth. 
The benevolence of God, His power to bless mankind, 
depends on His always acting worthily of Himself 

4. But the Scripture* teaches that the glory of God, 
" the essential perfections of the Divine nature,"t re- 
quired, that He should not only have had respect to 
mamier, but have limited Himself to ojie manner 
namely, " the making the Captain of our salvation per- 

* In the text before referred to and others. 

f See Heb. ij. 10. We have not exaggerated the force of the 
word " became " in this passage. " The word signifies that de- 
cency and becomingness, which justice, reason and equity require ; 
so that the contrary would be unmeet, because unequal and un- 
just. Thus every one's duty, that which is incumbent on him, 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 41 

feet tlirough sufferings." For this — this, and no 
other — the necessity was the same as that God be un- 
changeably God, a Being of infinite perfection, who 
will not dishonor Himself by conduct unbecoming or 
unsuitable in sucli a Being. 

5. The doctrine we are to explain, takes for granted 
concerning this plan, that it embraces what evangel- 
ical theology has termed an atonement for sin. 
By this phrase is intended, an amende, a compensation, 
or satisfaction, for the remission or setting aside of tlie 
condign punishment of sin ; or the punishment of the 
sinner according to his desert. The idea of Atone- 
ment is sometimes identified with simple at-one-menl, 
or reconciliation ; but if the design be to exclude 
what has now been expressed, it will not be pretended 
that this is the evangelical or orthodox meaning of 
the term. The Atonement, as commonly held by the 
Church, rests on the assumptions that man is a sinner, 
and that there is in the nature of sin that which de- 
serves and calls for punishment ; and is something 
which comes in place of punishment, supposing this to 
be forborne. Our object does not require us to ex- 
amine the assumptions just mentioned. Taking as 
conceded, that man is a sinner, and that sin incurs 
punishment, we are to show the principles or nature 
of that Atonement or satisfaction for the remission of 



in his place and station, is that which becomes him ; and thence 
in the New Testament, that which is not Kara to Trpen-ov, thus 
decent, is condemned as evil, 1 Cor. xi. 13 ; 1 Tim. ii. 10 : and 
itself is condemned as a rule of virtue. Mat. iii. 15 ; Eph. v, 3." — 
Dr. Oic&n, in loc. Works, vol. iii. p. 394. 



42 NATURE OF TEE ATONEMENT. 

punishment, which, we assume, the way of the Divine 
mercy to mankind embraces. 

6. We ground the necessity for an atonement, under 
the circumstances supposed, in the perfection of the 
Divine Nature, and the necessity that God always act 
worthily of Himself. Supposing that there is for- 
giveness with Him, — that He may and does remit the 
punishment of sin, God, we say, owes it to Himself, as 
the Best and Greatest, the Lord and Creator of all 
things, to require an atonement. Sin calls for pun- 
ishment, and God cannot disregard the demand ; can- 
not — if it be necessary that the Deity retain the glory 
of His nature inviolate. Of this the proof is in itself. 
The difference between good and evil, holiness and 
sin, is essential and immutable, and to this differ- 
ence, no upright being can be insensible ; neither 
can such a being refrain, if occasion arise, from ex- 
pressing appropriately, approbation of holiness, and 
hatred of sin. The Most High, then, infinite as He is 
in moral perfection, and holding the provinces of 
Lawgiver and Ruler of the world, was under a neces- 
sity — that repeatedly mentioned, of being true to 
Himself in His mode of agency, — to manifest, in fitting 
measure and form. His disapprobation of sin. It be- 
came Him to do this, in the first place, in His Law — 
the rule of life which He gave to man ; and, in the 
next place, he must do the same, if there be occasion, 
in administering and executing His Law. It is impos- 
sible, that either in the one or the other province, He 
should fail to express His estimate of the demerit or 
turpitude of sin ; nmch more do, or omit to do, any- 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 43 

things which might imply, that his His abhorrence of 
sin is less than it should be, or may be changed or 
abated. These things have their proof in themselves, 
and cannot be denied. But if they be true, how may 
God, acting towards His creatures as Lord and Judge 
of all, dispense with the pmiishment of sin ? A pen- 
alty the law must have ; and where it has been in- 
curred by transgression, hovv- may it consist with the 
moral rectitude of the Deity, not to execute the 
penalty ? Is not punishment in this case necessary 
to the just revelation of the Divine displeasure 
against sin ? 

7. But the fact lies before us, and is admitted by 
all, that punishment is foreborne ; that mercy in the 
Divine administration "rejoices against judgment," and 
opens the gates of Heaven to those who have incurred 
condemnation to eternal death. There is remission of 
punishment for rebellious men. But how miglit this 
take place, without dishonor to Him, " for whom are 
all things and by whom are all things ?" The primary 
and natural means of maintaining His honor being set 
aside, does a possibility remain of securing the end by 
any other means ? Our doctrine gives this question 
an affirmative reply. It asserts there was one other 
moans, — namely, an Aionement, by which the end could 
be and was secured. And because the end must be 
secured, and could be by no other means, an Atone- 
ment in order to the forgiveness of mankind was as 
necessary, as that God do nothing incompatible with 
His essential excellency. 

8. But how could even an Atonemeht answer the 



44 NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

purpose ? The careful consideration of this question 
is necessary to our design. To see the truth distinctly 
here, is to understand the doctrine of the Atonement. 
Let it be remembered, then, what the precise thing 
was that would have put the Divine conduct out of 
harmony, out of consistency, with the essential perfec- 
tion of God, in case of an arbitrary remission of pun- 
ishment. It was just this, that there would in that 
case have been no appropriate revelation of the des- 
pleasure of God against sin. Against sin : Not as 
jeoparding government merely, but as essentially 
evil in itself, apart from its actual or possible develop- 
ments of its evil tendency. The interest of govern- 
ment does not comprehend the entire ground of the 
necessity for an Atonement. Does not the efficacy of 
the Atonement in maintaining government depend on 
its sufficiency to meet a higher demand, namely, that 
the harmony of the Divine Perfections be conserved, 
and particularly, that Justice, as an attribute of the 
Divine Nature, essential and indefeasible, irrespective 
of external relations and consequences, be satisfied ? 
Let there be then an adequate revelation of God's 
displeasure against sin, and does not the necessity for 
punishment disappear ? Why is punishment necessary 
any longer, if its object is attained ? It was only in 
order to the manifestation of the Divine abhorrence 
of sin, that punishment was appointed. It was not 
appointed simply for its own sake. If it be possible, 
then, by any other means than punishment, to reveal in 
full measure and power the Divine Indignation against 
sin ; in other words, if there be any means by which 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 45 

the cud of punishment is answered as perfectly as by 
puuisliment itself, and if these means are provided, is 
not the way now open, so far as the honor of God is 
concerned, for the setting aside of punishment ? May 
not pardoning mercy liere intervene, and grace abound 
in all its offices of kindness and love, without opposi- 
tion from any one of the Divine perfections? May 
not God now act as it becomes Him to do, even while 
He pours upon the guilty and the condemned, if only 
they are prepared to receive it, all the fulness of His 
benevolence ? In the language of inspiration, may we 
not say that God now may be just and yet the justifier 
of men ? Or is there still something in the nature of 
God inconsistent with the remission of punishment ? 

9. To some it appears, so at least we understand them 
to say, that two things in the Divine Nature are still 
inconsistent; two essential perfections — the Divine 
Justice and the Divine Veracity. 

A necessity for punishing sin lies, it has been said, 
in the nature of sin itself, as deserving of punishment ; 
punishment is dueio sin ; — so that Justice has no place 
if punishment be set aside. But, is this indeed so ? 
Punishment is due to sin, if due and desert be the 
same? Sin deserves punishment; and if Justice is 
wanting wherever there is not treatment according 
to desert, forbearing to punish is being unjust ; and 
there is truly a hindrance to the remission of punish- 
ment still remaining in the Nature of God : He would 
be the author of injustice if He should forbear to pun- 
ish. The high and unchangeable necessity of which we 
have again and again spoken, would be against admit- 



46 i^-4 TUBE OF THE A TONEMENT. 

ting any substitute for the punishment of sin. No atone- 
ment is admissible, not even though the atonement be 
itself punishment, i. e., the punishment of another: for 
the argument is, that there must bo punishment where 
and hecaiise it is deserved ; and the sinner's desert of 
punishment is one of the things which are eternal. 

10. But let it be inquired into, whether that is the 
true idea of Justice which leads to this conclusion? 
Is it so, that Justice implies and necessitates treatment 
according to desert^ so that where there is sin there 
must be punishment, or Justice is sacrificed? The 
necessity of treatment according to desert — is this em- 
braced in the nature of Justice ? Is there, then, no 
such thing with God, as the remission of the punish- 
ment of sin, or veritable forgiveness ? What means 
the preaching of the remission of sins among all na- 
tions in the name of Christ V' 

Besides, how, after adopting this idea of Justice, can 
we give it a place among the Virtues ? If Justice be 
a virtue, a good thing, it can never be opposed to any 
other virtue, or oblige us to anything evil, or be incon- 
sistent with universal goodness. The Virtues are ho- 
mogeneal, sisters in the same family ; they love and 
embrace one another. If I must renounce Virtue — be 
malignant or vindictive, for example, in order to re- 
tain what I choose to call Justice, either Justice is 
now an evil thing, or I have abused it, by giving its 
name to that which is evil. That cannot be in its 
own nature good which requires us to be, or to do, 
evil. But suppose a man to be brought into judgment 
* Luke xxiv. 47. 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 41 

and condemned as a criminal ; and that, by some 
means, the ends to be answered by his punishment are 
already secured — that through a certain arrange- 
ment or provision, no injury will be sustained, and no 
good be lost — no ill consequences of any kind will fol- 
low, by forbearing to punish him — so that if his pun- 
ishment should take place it would be for no end but 
simply for punishment's sake ; and now suppose again, 
that something naming itself Justice should forbid his 
discharge on the ground that it would keep him from 
his desert, would this something, bear whatever name it 
may, be anything else than simple malignity — would it 
do in this case what might be regarded as a praiseworthy 
office, a thing worthy to be classed with the exercises 
and acts of that holy Love, which is the fulfilling of 
the moral law ? Surely it ought not to be called Jus- 
tice. Is the quality of Justice such that it must in- 
flict punishment, in all cases where it is merited, irre- 
spectively of the ends of punishment, or merely bo- 
cause punishment has been incurred and is deserved ? 
The ends of punishment must be regarded ; they are 
the justification and defence of its infliction — what 
Justice points to, it may be with tears of pity, as 
the necessitating cause of her severity. If these 
can be secured without punishment, it is not Jus- 
tice, or any form of goodness, but arbitrary cruelty, 
that will proceed, in these circumstances, to inflict a 
pang, though death itself be deserved. Justice is in 
this case satisfied — she does not and cannot object to 
the remission of punishment : Justice is no enemy to 
Love. 



48 NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

11. It may be well to note the office and place of 
Justice in a Virtuous character. It is essential, but it 
does not hold the highest seat among the attributes of 
goodness. The supremacy belongs to Love — the 
highest, brightest adornment and glory of every good 
being. Wisdom is in the service of Love ; so is Pow- 
er ; so is Justice. The work of Justice is to secure to 
all their rights, and protect the interests of all. This 
done, Justice is content ; she seeks nothing more. If 
by any proceeding of Wisdom — any means whatever 
not unlawful in themselves — the interests of all are 
placed in perfect security, nothing would be more un- 
just and absurd than to forbid, in the name of Justice, 
the manifestations of mercy. 

12. Distinctions have been made in Justice, as if it 
were of different kinds, Distributive, Commutative, 
and Puhlio ; but Justice in each of these varieties is of 
the same nature ; in neither of them does it ever 
fulfil the part of simple despotic power, or renounce 
the rule of Love and Goodness. Distributive Jus- 
tice deals out to every one the portion of good " wliich 
falleth to him ;" allots to each one his claims, suffers no 
one to be injured ; but it hinders no one from relin- 
quishing his rights at the suggestion of benevolence or 
compassion, much less does it oblige any one to be 
malignant or unforgiving. Commutative Justice — 
faithfulness to contracts, honesty between man and 
man — is not against indulgence to an unfortunate 
debtor, nor will it imprison an honest debtor who has 
no means of payment ; such a measure never proceeds 
from any modification of Justice ; it is the doing of 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 49 

pure malevolence. Public Justice is of the same char- 
acter : it demands the punishment of crimes, as a 
means of securing the public good, but it is not against 
the pardon of an offender whose punishment may be 
remitted with prudence ; or, as the case sometimes is, 
must be remitted, unless the public good be disregard- 
ed. To return to our former statement, it is never 
of the nature or spirit of Justice to give pain where 
no ulterior end is to be answered, where there is 
no object to be reached beyond the giving of pain, 
or where the infliction terminates in itself. Such 
severity proceeds not from Justice, but gratuitous 
cruelty. Justice, then, is not in the way. 

13. The other supposed obstacle is the Divine Yer- 
acity. Punishment, we are reminded, is not only de- 
served, it is threatened and denounced. It is expressed 
in the Law itself, as the consequence of transgression, 
and is not the Law the voice of truth ? Or is it con- 
sistent with the principle and end of Divine legislation, 
to allow the idea that what the Law names as the 
penalty of transgression, may be incurred and yet not 
endured? If this be so, is not the discouragement of 
transgression, the majesty of the Law — the strength of 
the Divine government, less than it might be? 

It must be confessed that there is, on this supposi- 
tion, less of one kind of strength than in the opposite 
view there would be. If the Divine government pro- 
ceeded on the principle, adopted, it is said, by an 
ancient tyrant, that no remission or mitigation of the 
punishment prescribed in the law would, xindev any 
circumstances^ be admitted, there would, indeed, be in 
3 



50 NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

it more of that terrible strength which is dis- 
played in the stern exercise of authority ; more, in 
other words, of despotic power. But it is impos- 
sible that God, a Being of perfect and unchange- 
able goodness, should administer such a government. 
He would not be God if He should assume the 
throne of an arbitrary despot. Any plan of govern- 
ment, not consistent with the supreme rule of 
Love or Goodness, is such as would dishonor the 
Most High. He could govern on no such plan. If 
the remission of punishment may be 'made compatible 
ivith Justice, it is reproachful to Him to suppose that 
He would, by institutes of law and government, have 
foreclosed against Himself the exercise of the pardon- 
ing prerogative ; or disabled Himself from appearing 
in His administration true to His own nature as the 
God of Love, whose goodness is His glory. 

The fact is, that mere legislation, unless it be itself un- 
lawful, never binds the hands of love, or forbids mercy 
under all possible or supposeable circumstances. The 
veracity of a lawgiver is not pledged by the simple fact 
that he has annexed a penalty to his law, for the exe- 
cution of the penalty in all cases of transgression. 
Let Justice be satisfied, and truth itself would lose the 
quality of a virtue, if it should now be a barrier to 
the free exercises of benevolence. Just legislation, 
like Justice itself, implies no necessity for punishment, 
except as the ends of punishment may require. The 
penalty of a law is "not to be taken for a prediction, 
expressive of a certain event, or what shall be ; but a 
commination, expressing what is deserved, or most 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 51 

justly may be ; the true meaning or design of a com- 
mination being, that it may never be executed."-' They 
■\vho think otherwise, " labor under a delusion as to 
the meaning of threatenings, which, though they affirm 
simply, nevertheless contain in them a tacit condition, 
depending on the result."t Such universally is the 
groundwork, the law, of all true legislation, human 
and Divine. Where law under the Divine govern- 
ment is broken, the penalty is incurred, the transgres- 
sor is amenable to punishment ) but God has not, by 
the mere fact of having given the law, pronounced a 
priori against the exercise of mercy. He holds, and 
from the first meant to hold, the pardoning preroga- 
tive in His hand. Although, according to the letter 
of the law, the offender is exposed to death, yet God, 
except as justice demands satisfaction, has left Himself 
free to do with him as He pleases — to have mercy on 
whom He will have mercy, and show compassion to 
whom He will show compassion. 

14. These Divine perfections, then, are not in the 
way. So far as Justice and Truth are concerned, the 
way is open and clear. Is there any other obstruc- 
tion? If an amende, an atonement, may be supplied, 
is there anything remaining, in or out of the Divine 
nature, to restrain the exercise and manifestation of 
Divine benevolence to mankind ? 

According to the evangelical faith, such a measure 
has become a reality. An Atonement has been made, 
by means of which all the perfections of God harmon- 
ize and interblend their glories in favor of men ; His 

* Howe. f Calvin, 



52 NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

Justice, Truth, Holiness, Wisdom, commingling with 
His Mercy, and all perfectly consenting together, to 
set before us, as a free and sovereign gift, eternal life, 
with all its variety of infinite blessings. It is, we hold, 
a historical verity, that such a measure has come into 
existence and operation ; has taken effect, and is the 
groundwork of the Divine dispensations of grace and 
goodness which so abound towards our sinful world. 
We regard it as the chief of all the ways of God — 
the foundation of His kingdom. The immediate agent 
by whom it was accomplished, was He to whom the 
Scripture refers, under the title, " the Captain of our 
salvation." The means were included in those suffer- 
ings of His, by which, as the Scripture saith, "He was 
made perfect." In these sufferings the Atonement is 
to be found. The Gospel of Jesus Christ records the 
history of the transaction. It had its consummation 
in the agony and bloody sweat and unparalleled death 
of Christ. " The decease wliich He accomplished at 
Jerusalem," including its preliminary and attendant 
particulars, was an atonement, a satisfaction to Divine 
Justice, whereby the door of salvation was opened to 
mankind. This is the grand article of evangelical 
Theology. 

15. The doctrine embraces an explanation, ^lnowmg 
why it was that this death had the efficacy which is 
ascribed to it ; or what gave it its power to atone for 
sin. This arose in part from the nature of the death 
or sufferings of Christ ; but chiefly from the character 
which the doctrine ascribes to the Sufferer. In this 
latter respect, the doctrine, without controversy, pre- 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT 53 

sents a great mystery. It gives to the Sufferer a 
sphere of antecedent and independent existence, out 
of and above the creation. It makes Him distinct 
from God,^" and at the same time co-equal and co- 
eternal with Him ; partaking with Him the essence 
and inherent glory of the Godhead :t whereby He was 
competent to dispose of Himself as He pleased, and 
also to suffer or do whatever might be exacted of Him 
for the satisfaction of Justice, without being Himself 
overcome and swallowed up, in meeting His dread 
liability. It afl&rms of Him, moreover, that He sus- 
tained a mysterious relation to God, that, namely, of 
an Only Begotten Son, who dwelt from eternity in the 
bosom of the Father. It adds, that this uncreated 
and co-eternal Companion and Son of God, came into 
the world, in the fulness of time, clothed in humanity, 
yet without sin, for the suffering of the death which 
awaited Him. Further, it represents Him as bearing, 
by the imputation of Justice, the sin of mankind ; thus 
making His sufferings vicarious, while it gives them a 
severity not to be explained or justified under any 
other idea than that they were a substitute for our 
punishment — a compensation for its remission. Finally, 
it declares that by virtue of these sufferings, on the 
part of one who possessed the Divine nature in full 
equality with God, an Atonement was made — every 
end answered which could have been gained by in- 
flicting condign punishment on mankind. 

16. The sufficiency of this measure — its power to 
atone — no one, of course, could perfectly appreciate, 

* " The Word was mth God." f " Tlie Word was God." 



54 NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

besides God Himself. None else could compreliend 
the amount of the guilt to be forgiven, or the punish- 
ment which it incurred ; nor could any other estimate 
justly the value of the sufferings which were endured 
by Christ — such sufferings of such a personage. Their 
compensative merit, in their breadth and length, their 
depth and height, who but God alone could compre- 
hend ? But they must have been an adequate com- 
pensation, having been appointed and accepted as 
sucli by the Divine Justice : and now, since by the 
will of God they have been published and set forth as 
sufiicient for their great purpose, that it has this suf- 
ficiency, or is a full amende or satisfaction to justice, 
cannot but assert itself in the consciousness of every one 
to whom it comes, in its just statement and influence. 
Being an atonement in fact, according to the judgment 
and testimony of God, it must be one in their experi- 
ence. Having satisfied the ethical nature of God, it 
cannot but also satisfy conscience, or the ethical nature 
of man. The facts embraced in it, — that the sufferer 
was, in essential dignity, equal with God, and was 
also His Only Begotten Son, cannot but be regarded 
and accepted as constituting it an atonement. Let it 
be admitted, that the degraded man, whose sweat in 
the garden was as great drops of blood falling down 
to the ground, and who died on the cross in the man- 
ner described in the gospel, was the equal, and express 
image of God, the brightness of His glory, and His 
own Son ; and that He suffered thus " to purge our 
sins," or make satisfaction for us to Justice; and 
though UQ finite mind can conceive the magnitude 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 55 

of the punishment due to mankind, yet sure and self- 
evident it is, that neither this punishment nor any- 
thing else, could have been of greater avail as expres- 
sive of the demerit of sin, and the Divine indignation 
tovrards it. Let the statement be apprehended and 
received by the human conscience, and it cannot but 
give that conscience peace and quietness, as to the 
atoning sufficiency of the stupendous Measure."^ 

17. But is the statement itself credible ? Does it 
not involve intrinsic absurdity, or what is repugnant 
to reason and natural religion ? Is not the possibility 
of an atonement grounded in an assertion respecting 
the character of Christ, which cannot be true? There 
could have been no atonement, it is said, if there had 
not been One in eternity with God, who Himself pos- 
sessed the Divine attributes: in other words, it is 
taught, that Christ was strictly a Divine Person. 
This is the foundation of the doctrine of the atone- 
ment. Is it consistent with the greatest and first 
of all truths — the Unity of God ? The statement is 
presented with a concession — rather with a bold 

* It is sometimes said, that the identical penalty denounced 
against transgressors of the law was snifered by Christ ; but 
that what Christ suffered, as to the matter of it, was not their 
penalty is certain : Edwards has indicated the difference in the 
following particulars : 

1. Christ felt not the gnawings of a guilty condemning con- 
science. 

2. He felt no torment from the reigning of inward corruption 
and lusts, as the damned do. 

3. Christ had not to consider that God hated him. 

4. Christ did not suffer despair, as the wicked do in hell. 
Edwards' Works, vol. viii., p. 176. D wight's edition. 



56 NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

averment, that it is in this respect a mystery ; 
but it is a mystery and no more ; it is not against 
any dictate of reason, or contradictory of the Divine 
Unity. In asserting the pre-existent and eternal 
Divinity of Christ, it does not deny the one and 
simple essence of God, but only implies that this one 
essence is pluri-personal ; or that in the essence of the 
Deity there are more Persons or subsistences than 
one. There is nothing in reason, nothing in nature 
against this assertion. It relates to the mode of the 
Divine existence — a great mystery indeed. But to 
men, what is there that is not in some respect mysteri- 
ous ; and if all nature be full of mystery, why should 
we expect to find out by searching, the mode in which 
the great Infinite Himself subsists ? The mystery, in 
this case, is one which, it is contended, the Scriptures 
reveal in a thousand places ; which, indeed, including its 
cognate doctrines, is the subject-matter of the Bible. 
The only question is, Is the Bible understood and in- 
terpreted aright? 



III. 

NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT-II. 

To this brief view of the Atonement, though we 
have endeavored to make it definite and distinctive, 
it may be proper to subjoin a few additional observa- 
tions in order to insure it, if possible, against misap- 
prehension. 

1. The doctrine as now set forth, does not 
present God as divided against Himself, or the 
Persons of the Godhead as divided and contrary to 
one another ; does not ascribe compassion to the Son 
and deny it to the Father. The whole Deity is made 
the Author and Finisher of the Atonement ; the will and 
purpose of the entire Godhead were fulfilled ; it was 
as much the doing of the Father as of the Son ; the 
Son, while He gave Himself, was also the Father's 
gift. The conception of opposite feelings and inter- 
ests is not justified, but precluded. 

2. There is no ground for the objection, that it 
makes God unjust in order to be just,^ — unjust in His 
treatment of Christ, in order to be just in showing 
favor to the guilty. Christ does not become a sinner, 

3* (57) 



58 NATURE OF TUE ATONEMENT. 

because by imputation He bears our sins. He is not 
regarded as deserving the treatment He receives. 
He is not treated otherwise than as He chooses to be. 
He simply foregoes His own honors and rights for a 
time, and offers Himself to suffer, as the necessary 
means of our salvation. He is not punished^ in the 
ordinary meaning of the word, as implying personal 
criminality. No injustice is done Him, unless it be 
in the nature of Justice to permit no sacrifice to be 
made, no interest or right surrendered for the benefit 
of others ; unless Justice be the enemy of self-denial 
"and disinterested benevolence. 

3. The Atonement does not imply that there is a 
vindictive propensity in the Divine nature ; or that 
God needs compensative sufferings for His own 
gratification, or any motives out of Himself in order 
to be inclined to the exercise of compassion. It sup- 
poses the Deity to be incapable of acting with impro- 
priety, or in a manner which does not become Him, 
but not to be vindictive or slow to mercy. The Atone- 
ment assumes as a necessity, that every Divine at- 
tribute harmonize in every Divine act or preceding j 
and that the Divine conduct can never be out of keeping 
with itself, or inconsistent with the majesty and honor 
of God, as the Lord and Maker of all. But this is not 
against the purest and highest benevolence ; it is only 
against a benevolence falsely so called, which, by dis- 
regarding mode in manifesting itself, would defeat all 
the ends of Infinite goodness. The Atonement is but 
the mercy or goodness of God, using a proper mode 
of showing itself to man. Instead of being against 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 59 

goodness, it is an instance of goodnes.-, comprehending 
every other, and also infinitely surpassing all other 
forms of goodness possible or conceivable. It is the 
chief means by which God demonstrates His goodness. 
There are representations in evangelical writings 
and discourses which, taken to the letter, and apart 
from their connexions, are to the discredit of the 
Atonement, as implicating the Divine character in 
reproach. ^ The Atonement is said to be the appease- 
ment of the Divine vengeance ; the wrath of God is 
set forth as spending and exhausting itself on the pure 
and innocent Saviour, etc. But these are bold and 
strong expressions, the import of which, as consisting 
with just views of the Divine goodness, is commonly 
obvious from their context and scope. They are not 
without w^arrant from Scripture."^ They make no 
bad impression on candid minds. When it is kept in 
mind that the Atonement is God's own work, that 
Christ was His own Son, in whom He was always 
well pleased, and that His treatment of Christ was, in 
fact, a sacrifice infinitely expensive to Himself, no 
room is left for understanding the language in question 
as imputing malignant feelings to the Deity. It serves 
but to show the malignant nature of sin, and the great- 
ness of the love of God to man.t 

* Zecb. xiii. 7. Is. liii. 10. Rom. iii. 25. 

f It is a theological question, whether Avenging or punitive 
justice is natural to God. {An justitia mndicatrix naturalis sit 
Deo.) If Justice be taken as we have presented it, the question 
must be answered in the aflBrmative, even if we ujiderstand 
the words, " natural to God," as implying that God would lose 
His true nature or be no longer. God, if He should be without 



60 NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

4. It is not true of the Atonement^ that it is incom- 
prehensible or obscure as to the manner in which it 
answers its end. Nothing in the Atonement is more 
manifest than its mode of influence, or how it is con- 
nected with forgiveness and salvation. An attempt 
to state the doctrine, which does not show this con- 
nection, omits the radical idea of the Atonement. The 
Atonement, in its very definition, declares hoio it opens 
the door for the manifestations of mercy. What is 
the Atonement but a satisfaction to Justice, as com- 
plete as would have been our punishment, in order to 
the remission of punishment without dishonor to God, 
and without detriment to His law and government ? 
And is it still a mystery how the Atonement is con- 
nected with our salvation ? There is mystery in some 
things pertaining to the Atonement, but it is denying 
the doctrine to say that we know nothing of the mode 
of its influence. 

5. The Atonement cannot with propriety be re- 
garded as a strictly forensic transaction. AVhere the 
terms peculiar to courts of judicature are used in 
speaking of it, they are not to be taken literally; 
but, as human language must needs be taken very 

avenging justice ; that is to say, if He did not execute punish- 
ment at the behest of love. This justice is indeed natural to 
God ; and the very strong authropopathic language referred to 
in the text, and examples of the Divine severity in punishment, 
may be cited in proof of the assertion. But if we take Avenging 
Justice in a sense which allows a disconnection of it from the 
rule of love, and suppose its inflictions to be for their own sake, 
merely, and ascribe it to the nature of God, we make Him an 
object of horror. 

* As Mr. Coleridge, Dr. Paley and others say. 



NATTIBE OF THE ATONEMENT. 61 

often when used to express Divine things, with more 
or less accommodation to the nature of the subject, as 
by its own evidence, or by other means, understood. 
The Atonement, for example, justifies no one in the 
forensic sense, the satisfaction which it makes not 
being such as the law exacts from debtors or criminals. 
Forensic justification and satisfaction are incompati- 
ble with forgiveness : he who is justified in a court 
cannot be pardoned : he whose debt is discharged 
cannot be forgiven : but the Atonement does not ren- 
der our free and gratuitous forgiveness an impossi- 
bility. Its influence is precisely the reverse ; namely, 
to make our forgiveness consistent with the perfection 
and glory of God ; or if we may so speak, to obtain 
the consent of Justice and all the other Divine at- 
tributes to the exercise of the pardoning power. The 
Atonement does not give us a claim on God, on tlie 
ground of justice ; it does not impose a necessity or 
obligation on God to forgive us ; it does not deprive 
Him of His high prerogative, as Judge and Lord of 
all, to have mercy on whom He will have mercy : it 
does not transfer this prerogative from Himself to 
Christ, or give it to the Son exclusively of the Father. 
We have mentioned what it does. It brings all the 
perfections of God into harmony with the free mani- 
festations of His mercy; so that in making these 
manifestations He acts as " becomes Him for whom are 
all things and by whom are all things.'' 

6. There is a theory of the Atonement which makes 
the believer's discharge from punishment a matter of 
debt to him from God. It supposes him, on his be- 



02 NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

coming a believer, or accepting the Atonement, unar 
menable to punishment on the score of distributive 
justice, square with the law, its demands against him 
having been fully met by his Surety, in such a sense, 
that to punish him would be injustice to him, a double 
infliction of the very punishment he had incurred. It 
limits grace in our salvation to providing the Atone- 
ment ; that was an affair of grace ; all after that was 
debt, absolute debt to the believer. It expresses it- 
self on this point in the following emphatic language : 
" The Justice of God that required man's damnation, 
and seemed inconsistent with his salvation, now does 
as much require the salvation of those that believe, as 
ever before it required their damnation. Salvation is 
an absolute debt to the believer from Glod, so that he 
may in justice challenge and demand it ; not upon the 
account of what he himself has done, but upon the 
account of what his Surety has done. For Christ has 
satisfied justice fulJy for his sin : so that it is a thing 
that may be challenged, that God should release the 
believer from punishment ; it is but a piece of justice 
that the creditor should release the debtor, when he 
has fully paid the debt.'' Nor is this the full extent 
of his demand on Divine justice : " The believer may 
demand eternal life, because it has been merited by 
Christ by a merit of condignity, so that it is contrived 
that that Justice that seemed to require man's destruc- , 
tion, now requires his salvation."* Is this the teach- 
ings of the Bible ? 

* This citation is from President Edwards. Professor Park 
remarks concerning it, ( Theory of Atonement,) that it was written 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 63 

The Bible teaches the doctrine oi forgiveness of sins. 
as well as Atonement, through the grace of God. 
Discriminating (Eph. iv. 33,) between Christ and God 
who, though the same in one respect are not so in 
another, it declares that God forgives us, — forbears to 
treat us as we deserve, not pays us what is, in justice, 
due to us from Him, — for Chrisfs sake, or on account 
of the Atonement which he made. It is impossible to 
imagine a greater contrast than that of the doctrine of 
the Bible and the doctrine of this theory, in regard to 
the claim of believers for their salvation. The oppo- 
site of the latter doctrine it could not have asserted 
if it has not done so. Instead of making the Atone- 
ment inconsistent with forgiveness, it makes for- 
giveness — free forgiveness by the grace of God, — the 
very object and fruit of the Atonement. Instead of 
limiting grace to providing the Atonement, it makes it 
the very function of that stupendous work of grace, to 
remove obstacles to the farther manifestations of grace. 
Instead of leaving no place for the exercise of 
grace after the first ofiice of it — or having mercy on 
whom He will have mercy, a prerogative of God no 
longer, it assigns to the Atonement the virtue of 
enabling Him, if we may speak thus, to exercise this 
prerogative consistently with Justice. Instead of em- 
powering believers to demand salvation as a debt due 
to them from Him, it summons all men to lift up prayer 
to Him for pardon and daily bread, and whatsoever else 
of good they would receive from Him. It sets forth 

by Edwards " wlxen he was only thirty years old, and was point- 
edly condemned by Dr. Smalley." 



64 • NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

God* in absolute independence of all creatures as to 
claims on His favor ; and in respect to sinners, while 
it announces Him as appeased or propitiated toward 
them, by virtue of the Atonement, it still leaves 
them at the disposal of His mercy, which on their 
acceptance of the Atonement, He is more than will- 
ing for Christ's sake to extend to them ; but to the 
Atonement itself, infinitely precious as it is in His 
sight, it ascribes no influence restrictive of freedom in 
dispensing mercy, whether in making sinners " will- 
ing" in the day of liis power to accept his grace, or in 
realizing to them its fulness, afterwards. It reveals 
God as a Promiser, it is true, and lays the utmost 
stress on the divine benignity as shown in the freeness 
and abundance of His promises ; and pleads with us 
by the argument that God cannot fail to keep His 
word to the uttermost ; it allows us — strange to think 
— to hold Him to His word, to prove Him, to test His 
fidelity ; but both in promising and keeping His pro- 
mise, it is not justice to tliem but pure love that ac- 
tuates Him, and such love as only the infinitude of His 
own nature could express or contain. 

7. The theory of the Atonement, therefore, which 
gives it a virtue to render God a debtor to believers, 
is not the true theory. There is no such virtue in the 
Atonement. Creatures, not to say sinners, cannot be 
put into relations toward God, which would make a 
claim on Him, in justice, either proper to them as de- 
pendent on Him, not only for what of good or goodness 
they may have, but even for existence ; or, consistent 
* Rom. xi 25. 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 65 

with the absolute and indefeasible independence of 
the Deity as the sole Original Fountain of created 
good and being. There is no possibility of adding to 
tlie merit of the Atonement. Among the works of 
God, there is nothing so worthy of praise as what our 
Blessed Lord achieved, when uttering on the Cross 
the word;^, It is finished, he bowed his head in tlie 
death of propitiation. Nothing has received such ex- 
pressions of complacency from God, such Alleluias 
from the hosts of heaven : Nothing has been, nothing, 
in all ages to come, is to be so rewarded. But for 
some purposes, nevertheless, it has no competence ; 
and one of these is, to entitle men to demand their 
salvation as an absolute debt to them from God. And 
it is not lessening its value to deny that it has a com- 
petency for this ; nay, it would take away all value 
from it to give it this competency : it would then be- 
come a greater power for evil, than it now is for good. 
If it might in some sense save men, it might dethrone 
and undeify God. 

8. The theory mistakes in thinking to bring the 
idea oicondignity into the rationale of the Atonement. 
There is no such thing as Creature-merit, as pertain- 
ing to God. It is alike impossible and unnecessary. 
First, it is impossible : Creatures may have claims 
on one another. The laborer is worthy of his 
hire : but while His creatures are indebted to God 
for every thing. He can owe them nothing. "For 
who hath first given to Him and it shall be recom- 
pensed unto him again?" Even Christ, when He 
became a man and so entered into the relations 



66 NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

of the finite, could not in these relations make 
God a debtor. It became Him, it was what He 
owed Himself as well as God, to fulfil all righteous- 
ness. It was otherwise before He became a man, or 
while He remained in the sphere of pure Godhead. 
But when He became human, it behooved Him to 
meet the conditions of that nature. He bound 
Himself thereby to absolute obedience to God, and 
did no more than it became Him to do. His put- 
ting Himself into human relations, which He was infi- 
nitely above all obligations to do, together with His 
subsequent obedience unto death, gave His work an 
excellence not to be measured by finite thought ; but 
even this could not lay God under the obligations of a 
debtor : God who alone could appreciate such excel- 
lence, could not but have an infinite complacency in 
it ; but He was not bound except as by His own en- 
gagement He bound Himself, to save mankind for the 
sake of it. And as this kind of merit was impossible, 
so, as we have said, it was also iiimecessary. God did 
not require a merit of condirjniiy^ to make him favor- 
able to us : all He required was, that the obstacles to 
the exercise of His love, which our sin put in its way, be 
removed ; after that His love needed no motive but 
itself ; it had motive enough in its nature : love seek- 
eth not her own ; she is moved for others' good : her 
nature impels her, and when once her way is prepared, 
there is nothing she will not do to give herself a com- 
plete development — to multiply favor, until it would be 
favor no longer to do so. 

9. We have thus seen that there cannot and need' 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 67 

not be a meriting of salvation ; but we must say more 
than this ; the desert of punishment cannot be taken 
away. The Atonement can do no more than cover 
the guilt of man, that is to say, secure him against 
punishment ; it cannot make him innocent. The wages 
of sin are still his due, his only due ; they need not 
be given him, but he deserves, in justice, nothing else. 
Upon his becoming a believer, God for Christ's sake 
remits his punishment, adopts him, takes him into 
highest favor, treats him, as if, to use the language 
of Paul,* he had become " the righteousness of 
God;" but in all this he is still undeserving, and 
God does but exercise mercy ; sovereign and bound- 
less mercy. So it is, and it is impossible it should 
be otherwise. Ill-desert once contracted, the fact 
remains forever, and its nature is also eternal. 

10. The theory, therefore, of the Atonement, which 
makes this, the greatest of the works of infinite wisdom 
and love, a payment of a debt, putting believers in a 
relation to law,t by which they require a right to salva- 
tion as a debt due to them from God, is not the true one. 
We accept no theory as a full explanation of the subject. 
We are persuaded that its philosophy is completely 
comprehended only by the mind of the Infinite. Its idea, 

* 2 Cor., V. 31. 

f The thieory, to make itself complete, applies most tlioroTiglily 
its idea of tlie merit of condignity. Regarding the transgressor 
in his two-fold relation to the penalty and the precept of the law, 
it divides the work of Christ, so as to accommodate this view, into 
two parts ; one his passive righteousness or sufferings and death, 
to meet the liability to the penalty ; the other, his active right- 
eousness or obedience to fulfil the precept. By the first, a dis- 
charge from punishment is merited, by the second, eternal life. 



68 NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

in its fullness, exists as it has done from eternity in 
that mind ; doubtless it has never entered, and will 
never enter into any other. The more we consider 
the subject, the more we distrust all philosophizing on 
it, farther than to exclude inconsistency with known 
truth ; which is all that we have attempted. The full 
significance of the facts of the Atonement, the incar- 
nation, the temptation, the agony and bloody sweat, 
the desertion and outcry on the cross, the death and 
burial of Christ, — can neither be explained nor fully com- 
prehended by man : neither can the teaching of Scrip- 
ture concerning these facts. The language employed 
by the Bible in communicating this great lesson — "The 
Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all," "Awake, O 
sword, against the man that is my fellow," "He was 
made a curse for us," " He who knew no sin was made 
sin for us," "Through the eternal Spirit he offered 
himself without spot unto God," "By himself he purged 
our sins," "He was the propitiation for our sins," etc., 
can never be adequately rendered into logical defini- 
tions or the statements of human systems. The more 
profoundly it is pondered, the more the mind strives 
to take in its full meaning, the more is its wonder ; the 
more its amazement such as that expressed by the 
holy apostle in his exclamation, " the depth !" — the 
more cold and sterile appear all human theories ; the 
more suitable the prayer of A Kempis : " Let all teach- 
ers be silent, let the whole creation be dumb before 
Thee, and do Thou only speak to my soul." 

11. The extent of the Atonement is determined from 
its nature. How far indeed it is to avail in actually 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 69 

saving men, or to how many it is to be ap[)licd, or what 
portion of mankind were, as its fruit, destined to salva- 
tion by the eternal purpose of God, cannot be understood 
from the Atonement itself. The satisfaction which it 
renders for sin, not being like the payment of a debt, in- 
consistent with, but only the necessary condition of, 
forgiveness, the Atonement of itself involves the actual 
salvation of none. Certain indeed it was, that this 
Provision of infinite wisdom and goodness would not be 
witiiout fruit ; but to render the Atonement effectual, 
other agencies and influences, those especially of the 
renewing and sanctifying Spirit, must be employed. 
In respect to its application or success , the Atonement 
will be coincident in extent with that of the Divine 
purpose : But the Atonement proper^ the Atonement in 
itself, or its efficacy precisely as an Atonement, has an 
amplitude and a sufficiency equal to the value of the 
blood of Christ — the infinite worth of His sufferings 
and death. The overture of salvation to man is 
limited in Scripture to no age, no country, no class, no 
number ; it is made, not to as many as God secretly 
intends to make willing to accept it, but with the 
same earnestness to those who are not made willing ; 
nothing limits it but incorrigible obstinacy of will in 
those by whom it is not received. The boundlessness 
of the overture has an adequate ground in the Atone- 
ment, whose breadth and length are also without 
bound. 

12. Again, the Atonement is adapted to have influ- 
ences and effects ulterior to the salvation of men. 
By the discoveries which it makes, the lessons of wis- 



70 NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

dom, justice, purity, power, and goodness which it in- 
culcates, and the manner in which it enforces them, it 
is suited to be the teacher of the world and the ages 
— the great light, the central sun of the moral crea- 
tion. The impression of necessities which it makes — 
the necessity that the ways of the Most High be 
always as becometh His essential majesty and glory ; 
that order be preserved in the Divine kingdom ; that 
the displeasure of God against sin be revealed ; and 
the necessity of punishment, or else of satisfac- 
tion, in order to this revelation j and the other 
mysterious necessities which are shown in making 
satisfaction ; — how fitted is an Expedient of this import 
and this power of enforcement, to uphold the universe 
in love and allegiance to Him, by whose infinite good- 
ness it was devised and accomplished ? That it is not 
hidden from any part of the creation, and that it is, 
in fact, the pillar and ground, the strength and se- 
curity of the moral empire of the Almighty, the bond 
of eternal union and harmony among angels and men, 
and all the sons of light, is a scriptural asseveration 
concerning it, which has a high ground of probability 
in itself. 

13. The distinguishing traits of evangelical piety 
appear in high relief in the light whicli shines from 
the Atonement. It is this doctrine which gives evan- 
gelical piety its peculiarity. That piety takes from 
the Atonement its entire image and fashion, its every 
line and point, as the clay receives wliatever is 
engraved on the seal. The Atonement in evangeli- 
cal doctrine is a fullness that fiUeth all in all. It is 



NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT 11 

the ground of all, it sustains all, it permeates all, it 
gives life and form and power to all. It has the same 
pre-eminence and importance in the piety which cor- 
responds to this doctrine as its just counterpart. The 
impress of the Atonement on the soul and the charac- 
ter is the sum, the all of evangelical piety. That 
piety is nothing else than the doctrine of Christ, co- 
existent and co-eternal with God ; Deity incarnate, 
suffering for the sins of men, the Just instead of 
the unjust ; — this doctrine written on the heart by 
the Spirit of the Living God, and exhibited in the 
life and conduct. We have not time to examine this 
subjective image particularly — the sense of mystery 
and wonder, the humility, the annihilation of self, 
wisdom, self -righteousness, and self-will, the filial 
dread of the Divine majesty, the contrition and 
brokenness of heart, the sense of the evil of sin, the 
love and delight in Christ, the love and gratitude to 
God, the peace, the joy, the hope, the praise, and other 
traits comprised in it : But one thing we cannot for- 
bear to observe: that there is in the piety which 
answers to the Atonement as the image to the seal, 
an absolute, overwhelming conviction of the final and 
aggravated condemnation of unbelievers. That the 
Atonement, with all its inherent evidences of divinity, 
and all the testimonial signs and wonders, and other 
outward proofs by which it is confirmed, should not 
be received by those to whom it is offered ; that this 
great salvation should be neglected, this only means 
be despised, by which man could be saved ; how ap- 
palling the thought of such desperate wickedness I 



'72 ^ NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

How shall they escape, where shall they appear, who, 
in the laDguage of Scripture, "tread under foot the 
Son of God?" 

There is a piety whose most distinguishing cha- 
racteristic seems to be aversion to that which is termed 
Evangelical. It has many recommendations. It 
melts with tenderness, it bows with reverence, it 
smiles with complacency, it rejoices with confidence 
and hope, at its own religious views. It often dis- 
courses with fluent and gentle, and tasteful language, 
in praise of itself; and it certainly has many 
fruits of natural goodness and self-culture to boast 
of. But so inimical is it to the majesty and 
glory of God, that when the great Device is men- 
tioned, by which alone it was made possible to keep 
the Divine honor unsullied and immaculate, while 
grace is shown to men, then this piety is ready to cry 
out, " away with it, away with it," as the Jews ex- 
pressed their scorn for the Son of God, when Pilate 
brought him forth to them, saying, "behold your 
king." No wickedness moves its indignation sooner 
or more profoundly than the doctrine of the Atone- 
ment. If that doctrine be true, of what avail will this 
piety be, ''when God taketh away the soul ?" 



lY. 

CHRIST PRE-EXISTENT; 

AS ASSERTED IN JOHN I. 1-5. 

" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, 
and the Word icas God. The same was in the beginning with God. 
All things were made by Him ; and icithout Him was not a/ny thing 
made that loas made. In Him was life ; and the Life teas the light 
of men. And the light shineth in darkness ; and the darkness com- 
prehended it not." 

Our familiarity with these words, unless it has ren- 
dered us unthinking, cannot have diminished our in- 
terest in them. Francis Junius, of whom, at his death, 
it was remarked by Scaliger, that the whole world 
lamented him as its instructor,* was recovered from 
atheism in a remarkable manner, by this passage of 
Scripture. Persuaded by his father to read the New 
Testament, "at first sight," he says, "I fell unexpect- 
edly on that august chapter of St. John the Evange- 
list, * In the beginning was the Word,' etc. I read 

* Junius, and Joseph Scaliger were Professors at Ley den, at tlie 
same time. Scaliger liad a strong aversion for Junius in liis life- 
time, because the latter took the liberty to contradict him some- 
times in matters of chronology, and opposed his having the pre- 
cedency over all the other professors. But at the death of Junius, 
the resentment of Scaliger gave place to the strongest feelings of 
respect which expressed themselves in an admirable panegyric. 
4 (73) 



V4 CHRIST PBEEXISTENT. 

part of the chapter, and was so struck with what I 
read; that I instantly perceived the divinity of the 
subject, and the authority and majesty of the Scrip- 
ture, to surpass greatly all human eloquence. I shud- 
dered in my body ; my mind was confounded ; and I 
was so strongly affected all that day, that I hardly 
knew who I myself was : but Thou, Lord my God, 
didst remember me in thy boundless mercy, and receive 
a lost sheep into thy flock." 

What is the subject of these wonderful assertions? 
What is meant by the appellation, the Word, by 
which that subject is expressed? 

In the first place, does it denote a Being, or an at- 
tribute ; a Person, or a quality ? 

That a real Person was intended, should never, we 
think, have been questioned. It is affirmed that this 
Word was with God, was God,"^ created all things, 
was testified unto by John, was made flesh, and dwelt 
with men, full of grace and truth. There is an irrev- 
erent freedom, to suspect nothing worse, in that criti- 
cism which ventures to inquire whether the Evangelist 
meant anything more than an attribute or quality, 
that is, no real subsistence, by what he denominates 
the Word in this sublime passage. He does not more 
explicitly affirm the Personal existence and individu- 

* " On this supposition," namely, that an attribute was intend- 
ed, " the commencement of the Gospel, would be altogether tauto- 
logical : ' In the beginning was the wisdom of God, this divine 
wisdom was with God, and God was this divine wisdom.' The 
Evangelist would have had no occasion to establish the identity 
of the Logos with God, if he had intended to denote by Logos, 
nothing else than a Divine attribute." — Tholuek. 



CHRIST FRE-EXIBTENT, ^5 

ality of Jesus Christ, the subject of his Gospel, than 
the perfect Personality of the Word, the subject of his 
great declarations in this place. 

Next, Who was the Individual intended by this ap- 
pellation ? We hesitate not to say that the evidence 
could not be more perfect than it is, that the self-same 
Person is here spoken of, whom the Evangelist after- 
wards presents in a human form, and under a human 
name, as the subject of his narrative. The Word here 
intended was our Lord Jesus Christ. To argue on 
this point, implies, in our view, a doubt whether the 
Evangelist did not mean to practice a deception on 
his readers. 

But why, thirdly, does he give Christ this mysteri- 
ous appellation ? That some reason for this existed, 
we cannot but think. None of the names given to our 
Lord, were given arbitrarily. They were all chosen 
from their being significative of Him, in either his 
nature, or his office. What is there in the present 
appellation that renders it an appropriate name for 
our Lord Jesus Christ ? 

We think with Clarke, that this name should have 
been left untranslated. The original Logos is, he 
justly remarks, as proper an appellative of the Saviour 
of the world, as either of the terms Jesus or Christ. 
And as it would be improper to say, the Deliverer, the 
Anointed, instead of Jesus Christ, so it is improper to 
say, the Word, instead of the Logos. 

It should be premised also, that this appellative had 
been used before the Evangelist wrote, with a deeply 
significant reference. Philosophers had used it to 



76 CHBI8T PRE EXISTENT. 

designate the creative power, to which in opposition 
to the doctrine of chance, they ascribed the origin of 
the Universe.* It was in use too among the Jewish 
teachers, who employed it to discriminate the Deity 
revealed^ from the Deity im-revealed — a distinction 
which they seem to have derived from certain passages 
in the Old Testament ; assisted, however, as Tholuck 
thinks, by the ancient oriental theosophy.f This fact 
accounts for the Evangelist's using the term as if it 
needed no explanation.:]: It was a term already in 

* " The Platonists make mention of tlie Logos in this way : — 
Ka&* ov aei ovra, ra yevo/ueva eyevero — by whom eternally existing 
all things were made." — Clarke. 

f The passages from the Old Testament cited and commented 
on by Tholuck are Exod. xxxiii. 14. xx. 23. Is. Ixiii. 9. Mai. iii. 1, 
Ps. xxxiii. 6. Prov. viii. 33 seq. These passages he shows, we think, 
contain the distinction ; but he supposes it improbable that the 
Jewish teachers would have discovered it in them, but for their ac- 
quaintance with the oriental systems of religion. " In several of 
these systems, the idea that the highest Being is in himself in- 
comprehensible and unapproachable, is found developed under 
various modifications. Man is represented as being seized with 
dizziness, when he attempts to comprehend this idea ; and in gen- 
eral there is no transit from this Being to a world of created ex- 
istences. Consequently it becomes necessary for God to generate 
in Himself a certain transition-point, to make His fulness compre- 
hensible and communicable ; and this He did by producing out of 
Himself from eternity, a Being like unto Himself through whom 
the concealed God was manifested." — The reader will find in 
Smith's Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, Vol. I. pp. 548—569, 
third edition, a collection of the principal passages in the extant 
writings of Philo, concerning the subject of the Logos. Philo 
was a Jew of Alexandria, of a sacerdotal family, who is supposed 
to have been about sixty years old at the death of Christ. His 
expressions concerning the Logos, have excited great admiration. 

X " Since it can be actually proved, that the words 6 7<.6yog rov 
"deov at that time expressed a definite doctrinal conception, and 



CHRIST PRE-EXISTENT. "il 

familiar use, and used, unquestionably, to designate a 
Person. Mankind had been taught the doctrine of the 
Divine unity ; they had also received some intima- 
tions of the doctrine of the Logos. Their knowl- 
edge on the latter subject, however, was extremely 
confused. The Evangelist has delivered concerning 
the Logos sublime and distinct statements, and identi- 
fied the very Person to whom that name appropriately 
belongs. The true Logos, of whom the Old Testa- 
ment had given some discoveries and promises, but of 
whom the philosophers and rabbis had ignorantly 
discoursed, was, the Evangelist here affirms, Jesus 
Christ, the Lord and Saviour of the world.* 

such an one as is similar to tliat of John, it is altogether certain 
that John employed the Word in that determinate doctrinal sense 
which was prevalent in his time." — Tholuck. 

* Tholuck rejects the idea that the Evangelist had allusion to 
the doctrine of the theosophists on this subject. " Since we find 
in the first place, that previously in the Old Testament, intima- 
tions of this doctrine of the Logos can be pointed out ; and 
secondly, that the apostle Paul teaches the same doctrine of the 
Logos, Col. i. 15 ; 2 Cor. iv. 4 ; comp. Heb. i. 3, although he bor- 
rowed his mode of teaching neither from the Orientals nor from 
Philo, but from Jewish theologians only ; and thirdly, since in 
Sir. xliii. 26 (28), the creative word of God, and in the book of 
Wisdom xviii. 15, the angel which presided over the theocracy 
of the Old Testament, is called /.oyo^ ; it must seem to be most 
probable that John did not occupy himself vrith the dogmas of 
other religions, but adhered to the Jewish doctrinal theology of 
his time, which was based on the Old Testament ; and that in 
this way he made known that the Revealer of God pointed out 
in the Old Testament — He who had directed the administration 
of the Old Testament theocracy, had actually appeared in Christ. 
In the Epistles also, 1 John i. 1, and in the Revelation xix. 13, 
John calls Christ the Logos, and thereby intimates the impor- 
tant meaning of this appellation." As the Evangelist wrote, a^ 



78 CHBI8T PRE-EXISTENT. 

The propriety of giving Christ this appellation will, 
in some measure, appear by considering that He is, 
as Philo in speaking on the subject of the Logos, or 
Word, admirably says, the same to the Supreme 
Intellect, that speech is to the human. All 
who believe in the Scriptures admit that Christ is, in 
some sense, the Revealer of God . The Scriptures teach 
nothing more explicitly than that the Deity, except 
as revealed by Christy is at this day and forever will 
be hidden out of sight, and out of thought, to the 
entire universe of men and angels. That God 
" could not make an external revelation of Himself 
in the world until He had become revealed within 
Himself, that is, in the Son," is affirmed (how intelli- 
gibly different persons will differently decide) by the 
excellent expositor Tholuck ] however this may be, 
it is the clear teaching of Scripture, that in point of 
fact, God, by Jesus Christ, has exerted all the power 
which He ever has exerted out of Himself, and made 
all the disclosures of Himself to creatures which ever 
have been made. That whatever knowledge men 
have of God and divine things, they have obtained 
through Christ, He Himself affirms : " No one hath 
seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son who is 
in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." 
It is related in the Old Testament that God was seen 
by Adam, Abraham, Moses and the prophets ; but 

he was moved by tlie Holy Ghost, lie was competent to make 
known that the Eevealer of God pointed out in the Old Testa- 
mient had appeared in Christ, without being indebted to either 
the Jewish theologians of his time or the eastern tlieosophists. 



CUBIST PRE-EXISTENT. 79 

they saw Him only in the Person of Christ, who also, 
by His Spirit, gave to holy men of old " the lively 
oracles " of inspired truth. Kow, as speech is the 
medium by which knowledge is communicated among 
ourselves, it is manifestly proper that the source and 
channel of all true knowledge should, in a revelation 
given to man, be denominated the Logos — a term 
which signifies speech, or instruction, or the word 
spoken, or, as in our translation, the Word. There 
is, doubtless, more of fitness in this appellation to the 
Person to whom it is given than we can understand, 
but it is sufficiently obvious, that while there is mys- 
tery, there is also intelligible and striking propriety 
in naming our Lord the Logos. 

Having seen that the term, in its present use, de- 
signates a Person, and that this Person was Christ, 
let us proceed to consider the announcements concern- 
ing him, which follow : 

L The first is, that Christ was in existence at the 
birth of the creation. The phrase "In the begin- 
ning" — the same with which Moses commences the 
Bible, refers us to the date of the creation, there 
being nothing to limit or qualify it. The assertion is 
that the Logos was in the beginning ; the question 
may be asked, in the beginning of what? of the 
world as it now is? of the dealings of God with 
man ? of the Christian dispensation ? And men may 
give their own answers. The Evangelist is silent 
He leaves us with the unqualified affirmation that the 
Logos was in the beginning — an affirmation which, if 
taken in the absolute sense, transfers us to the instant 



80 CHRIST P£tE-EXI8TENT. 

when creation had its origin and time with it, and 
presents to us Christ as then in existence. 

The assertion here is, unless it should be understood 
with some restriction of which the Evangelist gives 
no hint, that Christ was in existence at the creation 
of the world ; that when there were no depths — when 
there were no fountains abounding with water — be- 
fore the mountains were settled — before the hills — 
while as yet God had not made the earth, nor the 
fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world — 
when He prepared the heavens — when He set a com- 
pass upon the face of the depth — when He established 
the clouds above — when he strengthened the fountains 
of the deep — when He gave to the sea his decree that 
the waters should not pass his commandment — when 
He appointed the foundations of the earth* — then 
.existed our Saviour Jesus Christ. 

There are those, however, who restrict the words 
before us, so as to make them mean, in the he- 
ginning of the preaching of the gospel. It is not 
probable that many readers of the Evangelist will 
adopt this gratuitous exposition. It gives a trivial 
sense to one of the most remarkable texts of in- 
spiration, and thus subjects itself to contempt.f 

* In this use of Prov. viii. 32-30, to express wliat we believe 
to be asserted by the Evangelist as an historical fact, we design 
not to cite it as a parallel passage. It was, however, understood 
by the Jews of old, and the Christian church from the beginning, 
of a Person, the substantial wisdom of God ; and whatever advances 
have been made in the science of interpretation, we question the 
soundness of that criticism which takes it in a different sense. 
See Waterland's Eight Sermons, pp. 216-218. 

f Tholuck calls it the shalloiD Socinian explanation. 



CHRIST PBE-EXISTENT. 81 

This assertion stands and ever will stand, without 
limitation or addition. 

But taking it thus, what is it that it requires us to 
believe concerning Jesus Christ ? That He is a Being, 
in the strictest sense, eternal ! If He was in existence 
when the world and time commenced. He did not Him- 
self then come into existence. To make Him one of 
the objects that then came into existence, to say that 
in the beginning He began to be, or that among those 
existences which came forth out of nothing at the 
command of the Creator, was the Logos, is to contra- 
dict the assertion that He was already in existence 
when the beginning took place. Well have the 
ancient Fathers said that " He who was in the begin- 
ning comprehended every beginning in himself,"^ and 
that " as to the Being who was from the beginning, 
no time can be found when He was not."t It is 
therefore the proper import of the words of the 
Evangelist, that the attribute of eternity, in the most 
perfect sense, belongs to Christ ; that as the prophet 
Micah affirms of Him, His emanations are from the be- 
ginning, from the days of eternity. 

II. We are next informed, that Christ in eternity 
was the Companion of God. This is asserted not once 
only, but to give it stronger impression it is repeated 
in the second verse. The same was in the heginning 
with God, Eternal accompanying with Eternal I 
An unsearchable mystery, but yet a fact, to which 
the highest importance is attached in the Scriptures. 
In the statements of Scripture, concerning both crea- 

* Augustine. f Theophylact. 

4* 



82 CHRIST PRE-EXI8TENT. 

tion and redemption, the proposition that God did 
not dwell alone in that eternity which anteceded both, 
that the Logos was with Him there, is always im- 
plied and is often prominent. We do not give it as 
the assertion of the Scriptures, though a great com- 
mentator has made it, that God could not, except 
through the Son, have made an external revelation of 
Himself in the world ; but that in point of fact He 
has not any otherwise revealed Himself in the world, 
that before creation was entered upon, there was, to 
speak after the manner of men, a consultation held, 
and an arrangement agreed upon, between God and 
the Logo?, and that both creation and redemption 
were the fruit not of God's agency apart from that of 
the Logos, but of the concurrence and intercommu- 
nion of both ; and further, that but for the part 
agreed to be fulfilled, and in due time actually ful- 
filled, by the Logos, there never would have been 
either redemption or creation — is not only a state- 
ment, but the leading and fundamental statement of 
the Bible. That book does not speak concerning the 
origin and authorship of the universe, as too many 
do who profess to take it as the standard of their 
faith. It tells of a creating Deity, but it also tells of 
one inhabiting, with that Deity, the eternity which 
preceded creation, and equally concerned in accom- 
plishing that glorious work : " The Lord possessed me 
in the beginning of His way, before His work of old. 
I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or 
ever the earth was : Then I was by Him as one 
brought up with Him ; and I was daily His delight, 



CHRIST PRE-EXISTENT. 83 

rejoicing always before Him — rejoicing in the habit- 
able part of His earth, and my delights were with 
sons of men."* The Bible teaches that the universe 
was created /or Christ, and with reference to a revela- 
tion of the divine glory to be made by Christ, through 
the instrumentality of various redemptive and govern- 
mental agencies ; and that redemption itself, except 
through Christ, was not achievable without a sacrifice 
of the Divine Justice. From which clearly stated 
premises the conclusion is, that had there been no 
Christ, no Logos, in eternity, there had been no world, 
no creation, no time. We are accustomed in our de- 
vout meditations to trace our salvation to a covenant 
or agreement entered into, in eternity, between the 
Father and the Son, and to admit that but for what 
the Son then consented to do for us, our salvation 
would have been unaccomplished ; but the Bible leads 
us to take a wider survey, and to see in the existence 
and agency of the Logos, the foundation of the exist- 
ence and perpetuity of all creatures and worlds. The 
doctrine of a Personal Logos, the Companion of God 
in eternity, enters as distinctly into the biblical sys- 
tem of the universe, as the doctrine of a Divine exist- 
ence ; and the great Lord Bacon has shown himself 
as sound in the faith, as he was in philosophy, in that 
memorable confession of his, from which we give the 

* This language is not introduced as proof, but as happily 
suited to express the sense intended to be conveyed by the 
author. That it is, however, applicable to Christ in the strictest 
sense, was the universal opinion of the ancients (themselves, be 
it remembered. Orientals and therefore), perhaps the best quali- 
fied to give the true exposition. 



84 CHRIST PBE-EX18TENT. 

following extract : " That neither angels, man, nor 
world, would stand, or can stand one moment in God's 
eye, without His beholding the same in the face of 
A Mediator ; and therefore that before Him with 
whom all things are present, the Lamb of God was 
slaiu before all worlds ; but that out of His eternal 
and infinite goodness and love, purposing to become 
a Creator, and to communicate to His creatures. He 
ordained in His eternal counsel, that one Person of 
the Godhead should be united to one nature and to 
one particular of His creatures ; so that in the Person 
of the Mediator the true ladder may be fixed whereby 
God may descend to His creatures, and His creatures 
might ascend to God ; so that God, by the reconcile- 
ment^ of the Mediator, turning His countenance toward 
His creatures, (though not in equal light and degree) 
made way unto the dispensation of His most holy and 
sacred will ; whereby some of His creatures might stand 

* Lord Bacon, on the basis of such scriptures as Job iv. 18 ; 
Job XXV. 5 ; Isa. xxiv. 23, and of his own exquisite sense of what 
is fit and seemly, held that the reason or ground of necessity for 
a Mediator was the ineffable purity and majesty of God. The 
writer once questioned if it be consistent with the infinite good- 
ness of the Deity to suppose that He would not converse with 
innocent and pure creatures except through a mediator. Reflec- 
tion has convinced him that Lord Bacon is sustained in his be- 
lief by both Scripture and reason. It may be the highest good- 
ness to inspire even unfallen creatures with a sense of infinite 
majesty and greatness ; the want of that sense might be the 
means of their ruin ; and in order to produce it in them. Media- 
tion might have been indispensable. God is too good not to 
express delight in upright creatures, but it might have been 
unwise and contrary to goodness to be regardless of the mode in 
which His delights should be manifested. 



CHRIST PREEXISTENT. 85 

and -keep their state ; others might possibly fall and be 
restored ; and others might fall and not be lestored 
to their estate, but yet remain in being thougli under 
wrath and corruption ; all with respect to the Mediator, 
which is the great mystery and perfect centre of all 
God's ways with His creatures, and to which all 
his other works and wonders, do but serve and refer." 
That doctrine of the Logos, which makes Him the 
Companion, in eternity, of the eternal God, was, in the 
belief of Lord Bacon, as it is in the explicit testimony 
of Scripture, the foundation-stone of the systems of 
creation and redemption. 

III. The next of the anouncements before us is that 
Christ, the Companion of God in eternity, was also God 
Himself. The Logos was God. This is not a more 
explicit assertion of the Deity of Christ, than the 
phrase of which it is the translation. The translation 
is literally exact. This no criticism questions ; but 
still there is a criticism which will not take tliis as a 
proof-text of the strict Deity of Christ. It asserts that 
he was God, but " if we suppose the word Logos to 
mean the reason, or wisdom, or power of God, what 
can that reason, or wisdom or power be, but God ? "* 
The evidence however that the word Logos, means 
not an attribute but a Person, is as we have before 

* " A man's word, or thought, is not called man ; nor would 
the word, or wisdom of (xod be called God, if a mere attribute, 
or operation only was intended, and not a real person." — Water- 
land. That a prosopopoeia cannot be here admitted, is further 
evident from the fact, that it would, as Tholuck has remarked, 
render the expression tautological : ** The wisdom of God, per- 
sonified, was God I " 



86 CHRIST PRE-EXI8TENT. 

remarked such, that it requires a degree of opiniona- 
tiveness not often found, capable of offering it resist- 
ance. Recourse therefore has been had to another 
supposition, namely, that an inferior and subordinate 
godship is here ascribed to the Logos. He is said to 
be God, but not the Supreme God. If we admit that 
He was in some sense Divine, or was God by office, or 
delegated power and prerogative, we do not reject this 
testimony concerning Him. Here we submit four short 
remarks. 1. That Christ was a creature in some sense 
divine, or that He was God hy office or prerogative ; and 
that HE WAS God ; are not identical propositions. 
They appear at least to have infinitely different mean- 
ings, and wonderful must be the critical ingenuity, that 
can make them even seem convertible. 2. If the incon- 
trovertible meaning of other passages of Scripture 
would be set aside by taking the words before us in 
their obvious sense, an attempt to interpret them dif- 
ferently might show respect for the sacred oracles ; but 
there is a great mass of Scripture testimony demand- 
ing an adherence to the obvious sense in this place, and 
not a sentence nor a word to justify a departure from 
it. There are many scriptures which assert that Christ 
was a man, but there is not one which denies his Su- 
preme Divinity. On the contrary, it might be shown, 
as it has often been, with the greatest strength of evi- 
dence, that this latter point is asserted in Scripture in 
the most unequivocal manner. 3. The first of these 
affirmations concerning the Logos, namely, that " He 
was in the beginning," prepares us to take the present 
one in its obvious import. If the Logos was in the 



CHRIST PBE-EXI8TENT. 87 

beginning, that is, as we have proved the phrase to 
mean, existed before all created things, and, of course, 
was distinct from them and uncreated, there should be 
no hesitation in admitting his Deity in the absolute 
sense. After hearing that Christ is an uncreated or 
eternal Being, no surprise should be felt, at being in- 
formed that He is the Supreme God. The first of these 
propositions includes the second. If any thing be pe- 
culiar to the great Supreme, it is to have existed from 
eternity, or to be,' without having been created or begun 
to be. 4. Since ihQ words refer to Christ as existing 
in eternity, while as yet there was no world, and no 
time, to make them declare that he was God by office, 
is to forget that office implies creatures, over whom it 
is exercised. How was He God by office when there 
were no objects in existence to hold office over ? 

Zeal for the Divine Unity, is the ostensible motive 
for so explaining this and other scriptures as to disal- 
low the Supreme Deity of our Saviour. The proposi- 
tion that there was a Being with God, who was yet 
Himself Supreme God, implies, it is alleged, dualism 
in the Divine Nature, than which nothing is more con- 
trary to both reason and Scripture. The implication, 
we reply, is not included. God may be one in essence, 
and more than one in some other respect. There may 
be a distinction in the mode of the Divine existence, 
and yet be perfect unity in the Divine essence. This 
is not in itself a contradiction, and if Scripture asserts 
it, the inspiration of the Bible should be disproved, be- 
fore it is rejected. Further ; there may be a distinc- 
tion in the Godhead of such a kind^ as to admit of more 



88 CUBIST PBE-EXI8TENT. 

than one impersonation of it, consistently with its 
numerical unity. That is ; the one God may be one 
in respect to Godhead, and yet more than one in some 
other respect : and the difference in this other respect 
may be such as to lay the basis for distinct Personal 
attributes and offices. This is not an inconsistency in 
itself : Ko man can show it to be an absurdity : No 
man can discard it as contrary to reason without mak- 
ing himself wiser than God, provided Scripture has 
affirmed it. If now Scripture has affii^med that a Per- 
son called the Logos, had union and happiness in 
eternity with God, and that this Person was Himself 
God, supreme and eternal, why, since God may subsist 
in several Persons and yet be one God, should we hes- 
itate to adopt the belief that He does so subsist ; — a 
doctrine, which, while it makes Scripture intelligible 
and consistent, in the present case, is demanded in 
explicit terms by a thousand other texts, and has ever 
been a fundamental article in the faith of the Christian 
church ? It is not said, that the Logos as God, was 
with God ; but that the Logos, as the Logos, was with 
God. When it can be shown that the expressions 
the Logos as the Logos, and the Logos as God, mean pre- 
cisely the same thing, then may dualism in the Divine 
Essence be inferred from that interpretation of the 
phrase, the Logos was God, which gives it as a proof- 
text, of the Supreme Deity of Jesus Christ. 

lY. We proceed to the fourth of these great testi- 
monies. We are confirmed in the belief, that the 
Evangelist meant to assert the Divinity of Christ in 
the former affirmation, by what he now tells us of his 



CHRIST PRE-EXI8TENT. 89 

agency. He makes Him the author of the universe — 
" All things were made by Him ; and without Him was 
not any thing made that was made." If He who pro- 
duced all things from nothing, be not the Supreme 
God, the idea of such a Being has not yet entered into 
the human mind. This is here said to be the woi-k of 
Christ in the most emphatic and guarded terms. The 
universe in general, is first made His workmanship, 
and then each particular existence composing it, so as 
to preclude one exception. 

It has been said, that the creation here meant, was 
the new spiritual creation ; the state of things in the 
moral world, as arranged under the New Testament 
dispensation ; and that the assertion of the Evangelist 
is, that Christ was in all respects the author of that 
state and order of things. But not only is this said 
without warrant from the context, but it would not 
have been said, had the preceding testimonies con- 
cerning Christ been taken in the only sense, in which, 
as we have seen, every rule of just interpretation re- 
quires them to be taken. It is only those who deny 
that Christ was, at the creation, and therefore hefore 
it, and Supreme God, who take the words before us as 
referring to the spiritual or moral world. To give 
them such a reference is taking such liberty with them, 
as no one would take, who had not some favorite doc- 
trine or interpretation which otherwise must be sur- 
rendered. Besides, this assertion, so weak in itself, so 
unsupported, so repudiated by the context, is a virtual 
denial of what Scripture elsewhere affirms with the 
greatest stress. We shall cite a passage to this pur- 



90 CHBI8T PBE-EXI8TENT. 

port from Paul's epistle to the Colossians, and subjoin 
a comment. " For by Him (Christ) were all things 
created, that are in heaven and that are on earth, vis- 
ible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, 
or principalities, or powers, all things were created by 
Him, and for Him." "Not one example," remarks 
"Whitby on this place, " can be shown where the crea- 
tion of all things in heaven and earth, is ever used in 
a moral sense, or concerning any other than the natural 
creation. Moreover, in the first place, all things in 
earthy and things visible^ must comprise things without 
life, the inanimate parts of nature, concerning which 
it is absurd to speak of a moral creation. Secondly, 
under things in heaven, invisihle^ etc., must be compre- 
hended the whole celestial hierarchy ; but good angels 
cannot require a spiritual renovation, and Christ came 
not to convert fallen angels, but to destroy their em- 
pire." They truly liave undertaken a difficult task, who 
are endeavoring to show that the Scriptures do not 
make Christ the author of the natural creation. It is 
the declaration of the Scriptures, that God created all 
things, but it is also their declaration, that Christ is 
the Creator ; and since they teach that Christ was 
the Supreme God, they are not inconsistent with them- 
selves. They likewise and frequently affirm, that God 
created all things, hy Christ ; but if while Christ pos- 
sesses the Divine Nature, he is in personality, distinct 
from the Father, this expression conveys the sublime 
and most interesting truth, so clearly taught in otlier 
texts, that the Divine Person, in whom the creative 
power directly exerted itself to the production of the 



CHRIST PBE-EXI8TENT. 91 

universe from nothing, was the same that assumed our 
nature and dwelt amongst men under the name of 
Jesus Christ. We forbear examining into the grounds 
of this economy of the creation, or searching for the 
reasons, why the creative power did not exert itself 
irrespectively of the Personal distinctions in the God- 
head, or why the Person in which it did exert itself 
was the Logos or Christ. Tholuck asserts a necessity 
in this case. This only would we say on the subject, 
that if it were only through the mediation of the Logos, 
that the Deity could converse with created beings, or 
that such beings, as Lord Bacon says, could stand for 
a moment in God's eye, it seems meet and reasonable, 
if not morally necessary, that the power which was to 
give creatures existence, should exert itself in the 
Person of the Mediator. 

y. The fifth of these declarations is, that in the Logos 
was Life. We are not to understand by these words, 
that the Logos was a living in contradistinction to a 
lifeless or dead being, in the primary meaning of these 
epithets. To say this after having affirmed that He 
was the Creator of all things, were not only unneces- 
sary, but were to sink the lofty strain of the discourse 
almost beneath contempt. That he was not a dead 
bemg, by whom the vital universe was made, is an as- 
sertion which in the connections before us, no one can 
seriously think could proceed from the inspired Evan- 
gelist. But if Life here is not to be taken in contra- 
distinction to mere death, what is the sense in which 
we should take it ? It is not difficult to answer this 
question. There is a life, which is if we may so speak, 



92 CHRIST PBE-EXI8TENT. 

the life of all life in rational creatures. It is not 
natural life merely, whether of body or of mind, but 
the higher life of holiness, or holy joy. Life in Scrip- 
ture, often means moral excellence, holiness, benevo- 
lence ; and often, also, happiness, the fruit or effect of 
holiness. These, from their relation to each other, 
are considered as one, holiness implying happiness as 
its result, and happiness implying holiness as its cause. 
We need not therefore in the present instance dis- 
criminate : life is holiness ; life is happiness : no ac- 
count need be taken of the difference. Spiritual life, 
including both true holiness and true happiness, things 
dwelling in one another as heat in the sun-beams, is 
the life which is here said to have been in the Logos. 
This life, which filled the rational creation, while in 
its first estate, and we may hope, fills it still with slight 
exception, had its fountain in Christ, as the revealing 
God. All rational creatures awoke into existence in 
possession of it, which along with existence itself, they 
derived from Christ. He infused into them the holy 
vitality which dwelt in himself and filled them with 
his fulness. That fathomless love which appeared so 
wondrously in redemption, had been before manifested 
as perfectly as the nature of things would admit, in 
the work of creation, when the morning stars sang to- 
gether and all the sons of God shouted for joy. 

YI. This history of our Saviour in his pre-existent 
state, informs us further that the Life, the spiritual 
life of whose nature and fountain we have just spoken, 
— was the Light of men. The sense of this statement 
cannot be misapprehended. We are in no danger of 



CHRIST PBE-EXISTENT. 93 

positive mistake, even if we do not fully and distinctly 
take the meaning, so as to be able to express it in a 
perfect definition. Man, when he first awoke from 
non-existence, found himself in a world furnished 
magnificently fur his use, and gloriously illuminated 
by those larger and lesser lights, which still pour their 
splendors from the firmament. Those material beams, 
however, which gilded the face of nature, and trans- 
ported the eye with the views of sublimity and beauty 
which it presented, are not the light of men. Nor is 
this the light of the understanding^ consisting in ideas 
or the images of things in the mind and the results of 
combining and comparing them ; — a light which may 
or may not be associated with moral depravity, and, 
if associated with it, is called darkness in Scripture, 
nay, the blackness of darkness. The true light of men 
is, as Tholuck has happily expressed it, an ethico-relig- 
ious hnowledge, based on an inward communion with 
God, and comprehending the theoretical and practical at 
the same time; a knowledge obtained not by mere in- 
tellection, but by the blended exercise of the under- 
standing and the heart, when in agreement with the 
understanding and heart of God ; the knowledge 
which fills the upright mind, by its inwardly appre- 
hending and loving the Divine excellence. This being 
the end of all material and intellectual light is properly 
the light of men ; the glory and joy of our rational 
nature. The source of this light, which shone in man 
at his creation, purely and perfectly, was in that life 
in the Logos, of which we have been speaking. It 
was the communication of that Divine life from the 



94 CEBI8T PBEEXISTENT. 

Logos to man,' that made him the subject of this light. 
Even as in the new-creation by grace, it is by the soul's 
partaking again of this same life in Christ, that it 
acquires the light of the knowledge of the Divine 
glory. "^ Human teaching may impart the light of 
external knowledge, the knowledge contained in defi- 
nitions ; but that sort of knowledge, in which the true 
light of men consists, is not obtained, until a spiritual 
union takes place between God and the soul ; it is by 
virtue of that union, that the soul obtains those views 
of divine things with which it is transported on the 
day when it is born into the kingdom of God. 

YII. This recital concerning Christ in his pre-exis- 
tent state, closes with these words : ''And the light 
shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it 
not." No note need be taken of the variation of the 
tense, since, as it has been justly remarked, nothing is 
a more distinguishing peculiarity of the style of this 
Evangelist, than the confounding of the tenses. The 
scope of the context manifestly requires, that the past 
time be understood in both clauses of the sentence. 
The declaration relates to the Logos in his pre-existeut 
state, and to man as apostate and depraved. 

Darkness here means human nature amid the ruins 
of the fall. Darkness strictly, expresses a state, but 
the abstract is here taken for the concrete. Man in 
the darkness of his apostate condition is spoken of, as 
if he were darkness itself. This mode of speaking 
concerning depraved man is not peculiar to this writer. 
Paul declares that Christians before their conversion 

* Jolin viii. 12. 



CHRIST PBE-EXI8TENT. 9$ 

were darkness : " Ye were sometime darkness, but now 
are ye light in the Lord." The present testimony 
then, referring to man as alienated from the Divine life, 
and therefore involved in spiritual darkness, affirms 
the renewed love of the Logos to him, in these circum- 
stance of guilt and misery. When by transgression he 
made himself darkness, He who was the light of his 
soul in innocence, did not forsake him, but continued to 
shine within him, to the end that he might recover 
himself by repentance. Through the period before 
the flood and through all subsequent time, man, a few 
individuals excepted, was darkness ; but the Logos 
continued to shine in the world. He shed some rays, 
even as he now does,"^ among the most ignorant of 
mankind, enlightening in some degree every one who 
came into the world ; but they were shed generally in 
vain ; the darkness which they penetrated did not 
comprehend them. The Logos was in the world, but 
the world knew Him not ; He came to his own, but 
His own received Him not. They preferred tlie crea- 
ture to the Creator, the finite to the infinite, the visi- 
ble to the invisible, through the madness of sin. The 
great mass of all nations made no improvement of the 
light which shone amongst them and within them, but 
as Paul teaches, suppressed or perverted it, through 
their unrighteousness. Even at this day the liglit is 
shining in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth 
it not. Is the reader acquainted with no individual 

* Some have thouglit that the constant shining of the Divine 
light, was intended to be expressed by the use of the present 
tense, in the first clause ; but we rest not our remark on this crit- 
icism, for a reason before given. 



96 CHBI8T PBE-EXI8TENT, 

in whom this Scripture is verified ? Does not his own 
experience teach him, what the language before us 
means ? It is true in respect to himself, that the light 
has been shining in darkness, showing him his immor- 
tality, his relations to God, his sin, his danger, his 
misery, the way of peace, and motives to effort, of in- 
finite power. Is it not also true, that in this case, the 
darkness has not comprehended the light ; that he has 
seen as if he had seen not, and perceived as if he had 
understood not ; that his immortality he has practically 
disbelieved, his relations to God violated ; his sin he 
has loved ; his danger disregarded ; his misery not 
lamented, the way of peace not pursued, motives vast 
as eternity resisted ? Where is the man who can se- 
riously reflect on his own moral history, and not know 
from an interpreter within his own breast, what is 
meant by the light shining in darkness, and the dark- 
ness not comprehending it ? 

Our reflections on tlie^^c sublime testimonies con- 
cerning Christ pre-existent, have deepened our im- 
pressions of the truth and importance of the three fol- 
lowing statements. 

First, That this world's opposition to the Christian 
religion shows it to be a world in rebellion against its 
own Maker. The Author of the Christian faith was 
the Author of the universe. The Founder ol the Chris- 
tian church was He who laid the foundations of the 
earth and meted out the heavens with a span. The 
institutions, laws, documents, doctrines of Christianity, 
rest on the authority of Him who upholds the pillars 
of creation. To oppose this religion is to lift the hand 



CHRIST PRE-EX18TENT. 97 

of treason against the throne of the Almighty. The 
world have opposed and still do oppose it. " The- 
ophilus of Antioch compared the little Christian church 
in the wide domains of heathenism, to verdant islands 
in a great raging ocean. Thus too within the pale of 
Christianity has the congregation of the regenerate 
always stood in relation to the children of the world."* 
The testimony of this fact concerning the moral state 
of mankind, renders a denial of their deep depravity, 
their "desperate wickedness," the highest possible 
proof of it. 

Secondly, That it is not Christianity, that assigns 
simple God-head or Deity as the cause of the creation. 
It is coming short of the teaching of Christianity on 
this subject, only to say, the universe is the workman- 
ship of God. It is rejecting Christianity, in this great 
article, to exclude Christ's handiwork from the causal 
influence of the creation. Christianity tells us of a 
Logos as well as of a Deity, and makes the Deity in 
the Logos the author of the world's existence. They 
who assert that God apart from the Logos, or Deity 
out of Christ, was the maker of the universe, contra- 
dict the Scriptures in the most explicit manner. In- 
timations, that the creative power dwelt in a Divine 
essence which was pluri-personal, are contained in the 
narrative of the creation given by Moses,t and through- 

* Tholuck. 

f "After the closest attention that I can give/' says Dr. Smith, 
Scrip. Test, Vol. I. p. 483, " the impression on my mind is favor- 
able to the opinion, that this peculiarity of idiom, — (the use of 
plural nouns, especially Eloliim in application to the Divine Be- 
ing) originated in a design to intimate a plurality in the nature 
5 



98 GHB18T PBE-EXISTENT. 

out the Old Testament ; but in the New Testament, 
the subject is set forth in the clearest light, and the ex- 
press assertion made that the Creator was Deity in 
the Logos, or God in Christ. 

The doctrine that simple Deity was the Creator of 
the universe, ought never to be published, and if pub- 
lished never received as a doctrine of Christianity; 
it may be naturalism, but it is not the Gospel. Nay, 
if it pretend to be Christianity, it is another and a rival 
Gospel, which no true friend of Christ can do other- 
wise than disavow and condemn. 

Thirdly, That the greatest of all wonders is the 
Love of Christ for man. That our Maker should for 
our sakes make Himself a man — that He who dwelt in 
eternity with God, — glorious in all the perfections of 
the Deity Himself, and happy in the complacency of 
the other Divine Persons, — should, to recover us from 
sin and deserved death, take upon Him the form of a 
servant, and be made in the likeness of sinful flesh ; 
and being found in fashion as a man, should humble 
Himself and become obedient unto death, even the 
death of the cross — 

" oil, for this love let rocks and hills 
Their lasting silence break, 
And all harmonious human tongues 
The Saviour's praises speak." 

of the one God ; and that thus in connection with other circum- 
stances calculated to suggest the same conception, it was intend- 
ed to excite and prepare the minds of men for the more full dec- 
laration of this unsearchable mystery, which should in proper 
time be granted," — Any exposition of Gen, i, 26, or of the narra- 
tive of the creative process given in that chapter which does not 
admit this intimation, should, we think, be rejected as unsatis- 
factory. 



CHRIST PREACHING TO THE SPIRITS IN PRISON. 



"On Kal XpLGTog drca^ Trepl dfiaprtcjv ena'^e, SiKaiog 
vnep d6iK(07^, Iva xi^ag Tvpuaaydyx} rw ^eoj, '^avaro^elg 
fiEV aapfct, ^(jdOTTOLTpeXg 6e Trvevfiart, ' ev w Koi ToXg ev 
<l)vXaK'q TTvevfiaoL rropev'^elg £K7]pv^ev, ? dTreL^7]GaGt nore, 
ore dne^edexsTO rj rov ^eov fiaKpo^vfiia ev rjfiepaig Nwe, 
KaraGKeva^o[i£V7]g Ki(3o)rov, elg rjv dXlyai rovr' eoriv oktcj 
ipvxal 6ie(jcj^r]Gav 61 vdarog. b Kal iiiidg dvrirvnov vvv 
ocj^sL [3dnTiGfia, ov GapKog dno^eGig pvirov, dXkd Gvvei- 
6^G£0)g dya^TJg kirepi^rrnia elg ^eov^ 61 dvaGraGeoyg 'Itjgov 
XpcGTov.—l Pet. iii. 18-21, 

It is the design of Peter in the preceding context 
to fortify Christians against discouragement from the 
sufferings to which they were exposed for the sake of 
the Gospel. To this end he tells them that it is better, 
if the will of God be so, that they suffer for well-do- 
ing than for evil-doing ; assuming that all suffering for 
adhering to the Gospel is suffering for well doing. 
He cites, in confirmation of this, the example of Christ, 
who suffered as a well-doer, the Just for the unjust, 
that he might bring us to God ; the highest instance 
that ever was or will be, both of well-doing and of suf- 
fering on account of it. What the apostle would have 
them particularly remember was, that the sufferer in 

(99) 



100 CHRIST PBEAGHINO TO TEE 

this instance found ultimately no disadvantage from 
the unparalleled injuries which He endured. Though 
He suffered to the greatest extremity, even to His be- 
ing put to death in the flesh, the ignominious death of 
the cross, yet He was quickened by the Spirit, by whicli 
He went and preached to the spirits in prison, etc. 

" This place is somewhat obscure in itself, but as it 
usually happens, made more so by the various fancies 
and contests of interpreters, seeming or pretending to 
clear it." The fact, however, that efforts to explain it 
have been unsuccessful, will not and should not pre- 
clude continued attempts. It is relied upon to support 
unsound and dangerous doctrines, and it should, if 
possible, be shown by just exposition, that it lends 
them no countenance. Its affirmation concerning 
Christ^s preaching to the spirits in prison, is interpret- 
ed to mean that He went after His death to the abode 
of departed sinners, " the proper hell," and " that as He 
revealed here on earth the will of God unto the sons 
of men, and propounded Himself as the object of their 
faith, to the end that whosoever believed in Him should 
never die ; so after His death he showed Himself unto 
the souls departed, that whosoever of them would yet 
accept of Him should pass from death to life." This 
and other dogmas contrary to the catholic faith, ap- 
peal to this scripture as their warrant, and so long as 
they do so, the friends of truth, certainly, should not 
cease looking for the key to its true interpretation. 
Whether there be any conclusive force in the following 
remarks, is with deference submitted to the decision of 
the reader. 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 101 

We would first ascertain the meaning of the phrase 
rendered in our version, " quickened by the Spirit." 
So far as we know, what we take to be the sense of 
the original words, has never been given. If this can 
be established, we think a new ray of light will be 
thrown on the passage. 

Our translation, it is admitted, is not the only one 
the original will bear. Nay, much as we desire to 
honor the received English version, we are constrained 
to say that it has in this instance given a reading 
which the original will not bear. The true reading is 
not, quickened hy the Spirit, but quickened tVi the 
the Spirit. So it is given in Wickliffe, by Tyndale, by 
Cranmer, and in the versions of Geneva and Rheims, 
and so, but for certain theological antipathies, it would 
probably have been given by our translators. Both 
tlie prepositions, in the clause, " put to death in the 
flesh but quickened hy the Spirit," have been supplied . 
The words flesh and Spirit stand in the original with- 
out any preposition whatever, and it is obvious from 
their antithesis, that if the word " spirit " denote the 
active cause by which Christ was restored to life, the 
word " flesh " must equally denote the active cause hy 
which he was put to death ; which, therefore, must 
have been the flesh of his own body, an interpretation 
too manifestly absurd to be admitted.* 

The important phrase before us must have one of the 
five following significations : 1. That Christ after 
His death, was invigorated as to His human soul as 
distinguished from His body ; that, though as to His 

* Horselev. 



102 CHRIST PREACHING TO THE 

body He was dead, He was more vital tlian before as 
to His soul. We cannot adopt this as the true sense, 
though the thing affirmed may have been true, for a 
reason wliich will hereafter be given. It may seem 
to be required, at the first view, by the law of antithe- 
sis, but besides that it is a feeble sense, it does not, as 
we shall see, fall in with the scope of the context. 

2. That Christ, after death, was made more vital as 
to His Deity, as distinguished from His human nature. 
This sense must be rejected, as being inconsistent with 
the essential immutability of the Godhead. 

3. That Christ suffered death, indeed, in His body, 
but was resuscitated or quickened again into bodily 
life, by the Holy Ghost. This, however true, is not 
what the words were intended to express : (1.) Be- 
cause, as we have shown, the original cannot be justly 
rendered so as to give this sense ; it must be translated 
quickened, not hy^ but in the Spirit. (2.) Because 
the resurrection of Christ was not more the act of the 
Holy Ghost, than that of i\\Q Father ; nay, than Christ's 
own act. It is ascribed to the Father in Eph. i. 20. 
It is ascribed to Christ Himself in John ii. 19, and 
John X. 18. If it is anywhere ascribed to the Holy 
Ghost, it is not as His act exclusively or peculiarly ; 
and no reason appears from either the text or context 
for introducing the Holy Ghost here as the agent in 
raising the body of Christ : nay, (3.) the raising of His 
body cannot have been referred to in this quickening, 
for the very reason that the context on that supposi- 
tion cannot be explained. Indeed, all context, i.e. con- 
nection between the parts of the passage, is destroyed 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 103 

by it. For what connection is there between Christ's 
being raised from the dead, and preaching to the ante- 
diluvians ? 

4. That Christ, after being put to death in His 
body, quickened Himself into bodily life by His 
own Divine power. This cannot be what is intended, 
because, to mention no other reason, the original can- 
not be so translaetd as to admit the preposition hy. 

5. The only remaining sense of the phrase is, that 
Christ, after His death, was quickened in reference to 
His great work, the salvation of mankind ; — quickened 
as to that efficacious agency, by which this work was 
to be carried forward ; — an agency by which Christ 
made Himself to be felt among men in His power to 
save ; an agency which diffused new and mighty life 
through the church, and, by means of His church, thus 
vitalized, throughout the world. This agency was 
specifically that of the Holy Spirit, — according to the 
representations of Scripture, the Spirit of Christ. 
So he is called in Romans viii. 10, and elsewhere, (1,) 
because, the Holy Spirit, in reference to the accom- 
plishment of our redemption, is possessed by Christ 
above measure ; John iii. 34, Acts xxxviii. Is. xlii. 1 ; 
and, (2,) because, for the same purpose, the Holy Spirit 
is given or sent by Christ ; John i. 33, xv. 26, Luke 
xxxiv. 49. The distinguishing mark of our Lord, as the 
Messiah, was, that he baptized with the Holy Spirit. 
So He baptized His disciples on the day of Pentecost ; 
and so, by their instrumentality, He baptized great 
multitudes throughout the world, or in the language 
of the prophet, " sprinkled many nations," Is. Iii. 15. 

5* 



104 CUBIST PBEAGHINO TO THE 

Thus, though Christ suffered unto death in the flesh, 
in accomplishing the redemption of man, yet, relatively 
to that work. He was quickened in the Spirit, became 
efficaciously vital and life-giving, in the influences of the 
Holy Ghost, which were thenceforward so abundantly 
bestowed. In the Spirit, thus understood, he was 
" straitened " before His death, according to His own 
complaint, Luke xii. 50 ; after His death, He was 
*' quickened ; " life flowed from Him filling His cliurch 
with vitality, and the world too became conscious of His 
life-giving energy, agreeably to His own forcible 
illustration, John xii. 32, *' And if I be lifted up from 
the earth, I will draw all men upon me." 

We propound this, then, as the true sense of the ex- 
pression, as being, 1, the worthiest and greatest sense 
and on that account preferable, other things being 
equal ; 2, accordant with a manifest and wonderful 
fact, which was then filling the world with excitement, 
namely, the outpouring of the Spirit in His divinely 
vivifying influence ; and, 3, coincident with the scope, 
of the place, in connection with which it stands, as 
follows : No damage comes from well-doing : Christ 
suffered extremely on that account, and the result is 
known. To redeem man. He was put to death in the 
flesh ; but His death was the means of life to His cause. 
Before He died, to use His own simile. He was like an 
unplanted grain which abideth alone ; after His death, 
He was like a corn of wheat, which having yielded its 
life in the midst of a fruitful soil, is now producing a 
hundred-fold increase. To vary the form of speaking, 
He was straitened before He suffered ; He was quick- 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 105 

ened afterwards. Filled Himself with the Spirit above 
measure, He poured it out from on high, baptized His 
church with it, and diffused, through His church, a 
heavenly life among the nations. 

Such is our understanding of this very important 
phrase "quickened in the Spirit." Irrespective of the 
light which the remaining part of the text receives 
from this interpretation, it commends itself, we think, 
as the only one the place will bear. It will appear, 
however, as having new claims to our adoption, when 
it is seen how it elucidates the following context. We 
proceed with our exposition. 

The apostle having mentioned Christ's becoming 
thus quickened in consequence of His death, as to the 
life-giving power of the Spirit, goes on to speak of His 
having exerted Himself, in an office of the Spirit, 
among those who perished by Noah's flood. He 
expresses this in the following language : " By 
which he went and preached unto the spirits in 
prison, which sometime were disobedient, when 
once the long-suffering of God waited in the days 
of Noah." But why does he mention this ancient 
fact in this connection ? What has Christ's ministry 
to the antediluvians, in the person of Noah, to do with 
the subject which the apostle has in hand, namely. His 
being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the 
Spirit? This, at the first view, seems exceedingly 
abrupt, and some persons, probably, have been inclined 
by this appearance of dislocation and irrelevance to 
question, if the apostle be in fact speaking of what 
we have said, namely, the preaching by means of Noah 



106 CUBIST PBEACnmG TO THE 

to the disobedient men of this day. The dogma, as we 
have before mentioned, has been advanced, that Christ, 
after His death, went to the place where the antedilu- 
vians wliere now confined, for the purpose of preach- 
ing to them ; and in accordance with it this text has 
been explained ; and the explanation has, it may be 
said, this at least to recommend it, namely, that it makes 
the apostle less disjointed and incoherent in his dis- 
course. For it is what one would be naturally enough 
led to inquire about, after being told that Christ, when 
lying dead in the grave, was, in spirit, more vital and 
energetic than before. Where was Christ's disembodied 
spirit, and how was it exerting its invigorated powers 
during the three days and nights which intervened 
between His crucifixion and His resurrection? An in- 
quiry which it has been supposed the apostle, in the 
words following, proceeds to resolve. Is this so ? 

Was the soul of Christ in fact thus employed, while 
His body was in Joseph's tomb ? If there is any tes- 
timony in Scripture in favor of this, it is in the present 
text. There is no parallel place, no hint, no trace of 
evidence, direct or indirect, besides. Presumption 
certainly is against it: for why should these ante- 
diluvians, above all mankind who have departed in 
disobedience, be distinguished by such a privilege as 
it is said they had ? It is moreover fatal to this expo- 
sition, that it gives a feeble sense to the great expres- 
sion, " quickened in the Spirit." The spirit, according 
to this interpretation, means Christ's human soul ; but 
to say that Christ did not die as to His soul when His 
body was dead, but was rather more vigorous, were 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 107 

but to make a common place remark, and to say what 
is doubtless true of every one who dies, as well as of 
our Lord. We shall see yet further reason for not 
adopting this exposition. 

But, after all, is the alleged objection against the 
commonly received meaning of Christ's " preaching, 
etc.," true ? Is it impossible to trace a connection be- 
tween this interpretation and Christ's being quickened 
in the Spirit? A connection there doubtless is, if the 
interpretation be the true one. Confessedly it is not 
apparent at the first glance, but may not a connection 
be discovered by close attention to the drift of the 
apostle's discourse, and by comparing scripture with 
scripture? We humbly hope we have made this 
discovery^ 

The connection in question is a connection or link 
of union in the apostle's thought, between Christ's be- 
ing quickened in the Spirit after His death in the body, 
and His preaching througli Noah to the Antediluvians, 
then disembodied spirits in prison. Can no reason be 
conceived of, why the apostle should mention these 
things as he has done, in close conjunction ? We know 
the following fact, namely, that there was an impor- 
tant connection in the mind of this apostle between 
that flood, in foresight of which ISToah, filled with the 
Holy Ghost, lifted up his warning voice in the ears of 
his disobedient contemporaries, and that eternal de- 
struction which is now coming upon the world of the 
ungodly, and in prospect of which Christ, after His 
death, sent the Holy Spirit upon His disciples, and 
through them, thus qualified for the work, called men 



108 CUBIST PRE ACHING TO THE 

to repentance. These two floods, (if for convenience 
sake we may so call them,) though distant in time — 
the one long since past, the other yet to come — stood 
together in the apostle^s illumined mind, closely re- 
lated the one to the other. We see this in the follow- 
ing passage from the third chapter of his Second 
Epistle. " By the word of God, the heavens were of 
old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the 
water ; whereby the world that then was, being over- 
flowed with water, perished : but the heavens and the 
earth which are now, by the same word, are kept in 
store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment 
and perdition of ungodly men." The flood of water, 
the first flood, pointed in the apostle's view to the sec- 
ond, the flood of fire, by which the world's final de- 
struction is to be efl^ected. He could not, therefore, 
well be thinking of the one without being reminded of 
the other. Now, this final destruction held a lofty 
place in the apostle's present meditation. It was to 
deliver men from this destruction, that Christ, as 
quickened in the Spirit, according to the interpretation 
of this phrase, which we have given, was now em- 
ployed. This was the end of that movement now 
going forward through the ministrations of the apostle 
and his fellow-laborers in the work of Christ ; and 
that the apostle had this in mind, appears from what he 
says in the 21st verse. Having remarked that the 
result of Noah's ministry was the salvation of few, that 
is, eight souls, by water, he adds, "the like figure, 
whereunto baptism doth now save us by the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ." Baptism, in its signification and 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 109 

design, was no other than the great work of recover- 
ing mercy, which Christ, as now quickened m the 
Spirit, was accomplishing among men. This baptism, 
not the outward ceremony so called, not the putting 
away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good 
conscience towards God — this name for the great sal- 
vation now everywhere proclaimed, was the antitype 
of the water of the deluge — that water which, ^v^hile it 
destroyed the world, saved, as the apostle affirms, Noah 
and his house. Baptism, we say, was the antitype 
{dvTiTvnov — (idnTLGfia'^') of that water which floated and 
defended the ark while it submerged the earth. The 
antitype baptism, the great blessing which Christ, as 
now quickened in the Spirit, is giving to men — this 
baptism, saith the apostle, doth now save us — namely, 
those of the present generation, who, as did Noah and 
his house, have obeyed the warning voice of the Divine 
mercy. As the eight souls were saved in the ark, so 
we are saved by the antitype baptism, now appointed 
as the world's only hope. Another flood is approach- 
ing — a flood of devouring fire, which is to sweep ere 
long over the face of the earth, and dissolve the ele- 
ments with fervent heat. In view of this overwhelm- 
ing destruction, of which Noah's flood was a fore- 
shadow, Christ, quickened in the Spirit, and exerting 
Himself in the anointed ministers of His grace, is 
rousing mankind from the slumber of sin, and warn- 
ing them to make their escape, and proposing to them 
" baptism " as the means ; and they who hear His voice 
and fall in with His proposal, are saved from this infi- 

* See MacKnight's version. 



110 CHRIST PREACHINQ TO THE 

nite ruin, even as they were saved from the flood who, 
accordiDg to the Divine premonition, took refuge in 
the ark. 

We see, then, that this great destruction, the flood 
of fire, was in the Apostle's thought. Christ, being 
quickened in the Spirit, the religious stirs and move- 
ments of the times — the developments of the saving 
virtue of the antitype Baptism, implied this : but the 
flood of Noah stood in his thought, (as we have seen, 
and as it well might have done, from its prelusive and 
prefigurative relations,) associated with this other 
coming storm of wrath ; it was to him a proof and a 
pledge, that this more dreadful storm was truly coming. 
How natural was it, therefore, that when he thought 
of the one, his second thought should have been of the 
other ; that as he beheld the evidences of Christ's 
being quickened in the Spirit, in the great exertions 
which were then made to save men from the infinite 
destruction then impending,"^ he should remember that 
when the first destruction was at hand, the same be- 
nevolent Being (not indeed, as now, quickened in the 
Spirit, not in that fulness of power which He was then 
displaying, yet) by the Spirit in some measure of His 
influences, by the same Spirit, by which he was then 
striving so mightily with mankind, sought, through 
the instrumentality of His prophet, to bring the in- 
fatuated men of that age to repentance, and so deliver 
them likewise. And if it was natural for him to be 



* Dr. Owen thinks the Apostle's primary reference was to the 
approaching destruction of the Jewish Church and State, but 
that he also embraced in his view the destruction of the world. 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. m 

reminded of this, it is not surprising that he spoke 
ofU. 

There is one expression in our English translation 
of the passage, which some persons, probably, would 
lay stress upon, as being favorable to the interpretation 
which we reject : "By which, he ivent, and preached, 
etc.," (no'pev'helg eKTjpv^ev). But there are examples to 
show, both in the Scriptures and in classic autliors, 
that no special emphasis should be given to tliis form 
of expression. Among Scriptural examples see Eph. 
ii. 17, " Having abolished — the enmity — and came 
and preached (Kal eX'^cjv evriyyeXtaaro) peace to you who 
were afar off, and to them who were nigh." — " It is 
certain that our Lord, after his resurrection, did not 
go personally to the Gentiles to preach peace to them. 
He preached to them by his apostles only. But if 
Christ is said by Paul to go and do what he did by 
his apostles only, he may, with equal propriety, be said 
by Peter, to go and do what he did by his prophet 
Noah." He went and preached, is but a pleonasm for, 
he preached. 

According to the exposition now given of the 
passage, the sense and connection of it may be ex- 
pressed in the following paraphrase : 

Christians should not be discouraged by their suf- 
ferings on account of well-doing. No ultimate evil 
will come to them from these sufferings. They may 
convince themselves of this by considering the example 
of Christ. In order to save mankind, to bring us to 
God, He underwent the greatest extremity of suf- 
fering, having been put to death in the flesh. Yet 



112 CHRIST PREACHING TO THE 

His unparalleled sufferings were no detriment to Him 
in respect of His great undertaking. So far from 
this, they were the foundation of His success : all 
thenceforth was life in His body, the Church, and the 
world also felt His vitalizing power. By what abun- 
dant manifestations of the Spirit, and what glorious 
triumphs hath He since then been carrying on His 
mighty work of saving men from that infinite wrath 
which is so fast coming on the world? And this re* 
minds me how this same mighty Deliverer exerted 
Himself by the Spirit through the ministrations of 
Noah, when the deluge was at hand. He then 
preached, by His faithful prophet, to the disobedient 
persons of that generation, whose disembodied spirits 
are now in the prison of hell, bearing the just punish- 
ment of their incorrigible impenitence. T!ie great 
patience of God once waited on those unhappy per- 
sons for a long period, even one hundred and twenty 
years, during which time the ark was being built. 
The result, though small, was not an entire failure. 
Eight persons were saved in the ark by that water 
which bore it up and defended it, while it drowned all 
the world besides. The salvation of these few was 
the fruit of that same Divine grace which is now dis- 
covering itself in our deliverance from the greater 
wrath to come, and of which baptism, in its significa- 
tion and purport, is the compendium ; baptism, the 
antitype of the water which saved the family of Noah . 
I do not mean the external rite merely, but the thing 
thereby represented, the answer of a good conscience 
toward God, a conscience purified through the blood 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 113 

of Christ, and following its convictions in piously 
observing the sacramental ordinance of the Christian 
Church : baptism, another name for the influences and 
effects of Christ, as quickened in the Spirit — this anti- 
type baptism, through the resurrection of Christ, which 
is the consummation of His work, and the grand 
proof of His redeeming virtue — baptism, I say, doth 
now save us from the coming vengeance of God, even 
as Noah and his household were saved from the flood 
which drowned the world, by the typical ark and 
water. 



VI. 

IMPOTENCE OF WILL: 

WILL-NOT A REAL CAN-NOT 



God has given to creatures different kinds of power, 
or power to do different things. Reptiles can creep, 
fishes can swim, birds can fly, quadrupeds can walk : 
Men can think, reason, abstract and classify, discourse, 
discriminate between good and evil, can do good and 
evil, love and hate. 

The povrer which creatures have by their nature, or 
what they are as creatures, is, strictly speaking, their 
natural power. The word natural is applied in scrip- 
ture (1 Cor. ii. 14), to a man as unrenewed ; but it is 
now used tropically ; in its proper meaning it defines 
what pertains to the make or constitution of beings — 
their nature, as we commonly say. The power then 
which man has as man, that whereby he is recognized 
as man or human, is man's natural power : power to 
think, reason, discourse, distinguish between good and 
evil, etc., in short, to do whatever a human being as 
such can do by virtue of his having the human na- 
ture. 

The epithet moral has been applied to power, and 
(114) 



WILL-NOT A BEAL CAN-NOT. 115 

SO we have the phrase moral power ; and it has been 
used as if it denoted the contrast of natural power ; 
or, as if the power now called moral, was not natural, 
or did not belong to man as man. It should never be 
so used. There are but two senses in which it maybe 
taken : Power may be called moral, from the sphere 
of its activity, from its being concerned with things of 
a moral nature, things morally good or evil, right or 
wrong. Power does not, on this account, cease to be 
natural. Power to think, reason, etc., in the moral 
sphere, is as proper to human nature, as aught else 
that belongs to it ; nothing is more natural to man 
than this moral power. It is only by a metonomy, 
transferring the quality of the objective to the sub- 
jective, that power in this exercise of it, has come 
to be called moral. It is not called moral because 
it is itself so, any more now than when the objects 
with which it is concerned are not' of a moral na- 
ture. Why should moral and natural power be made 
contraries, when moral power is still natural ? Taken 
in the remaining sense, the phrase is figuratively ap- 
plied to that which is not power properly so called ; 
namely, to a disposition or internal state, whereby one 
is specially apt or prepense to a certain use of nat- 
ural power. One may name this power, if he 
will, but he does so by rhetorical license, unless he 
would confound a disposition to use a thing, with the 
thing itself. In no application of the term, then, is 
moral power a real antithesis to natural. 

There is however a reason for calling disposition, in 
this case, power. Disposition, by continued exercise 



116 IMPOTENCE OF WILL: 

of the power it sets one to the use of, increases in 
favor of that use ; and even by its first exercise 
may acquire a fixity unchangeable except by foreign 
power, as in the case of Adam in his first sin, who 
thereby subjected himself to a propensity to sin, not to 
be overcome except by renewing grace. It is not 
strange — it was indeed almost inevitable in a free use of 
language — that such a propensity or disposition should 
be called power, and there is no inconvenience from 
so calling it, provided metaphor or rhetoric do not 
afterwards pass itself as logic. 

The essential difference between disposition and 
power appears in this, that disposition to use power 
in a certain way may be changed ; whereas, natural 
power cannot be changed, without making the agent 
another being ; in which case change is but destruc- 
tion. A man as long as he is a man, will have man's 
natural power, power to do what is proper to a crea- 
ture of man's order. In the great change called Re- 
generation, nothing in effect is done, but to bring 
about a new use of natural power by putting it under 
the command of a new disposition. The subject of 
this change, as to his humanity simply, is exactly what 
he was ; he has acquired no new power, though from 
the new disposition which controls him, and the con- 
sequent new use of his power, he is sometimes called a 
new man. 

As disposition to a certain use of power is not itself 
power properly so called, so neither is the hindrance 
to the use of power arising from an opposing dis- 
position, properly called inability. Terms expressive 



WILL-NOT A REAL CAN-NOT. 117 

of inability are often applied to it, but they are so 
applied only in free or tropical speech : As to effect, 
the hindrance is equivalent to the want of power, and 
is therefore taken for this, and called by its name, 
inability. We say the man cannot act, only meaning 
however that he is invincibly indisposed, or set against 
acting. The connection or obvious drift of language 
in such cases, generally makes the meaning unmistak- 
able. When, e. g. the Scripture says that Joseph's 
brothers " hated him and could not speak peaceably to 
him," it implies, that their hatred apart, they could 
have spoken to him peaceably : they might have so 
spoken to him, had they not been otherwise disposed. 
They were therefore able^ while unable ; which they 
would not have been, if the inability imputed to them 
had been a want of natural power : it was spoken of 
as inability by the license of rhetoric. 

Nevertheless, this moral or figurative impotence, 
however denominated, is a reality : it hinders the use 
of power : if man were a brute or a stone, he would 
not be farther from the holy use of the power of a 
man than it is certain he will be, while left to him- 
self in a state of subjection to a disposition to sin. 
Indeed, there is a sense in which this disposition may 
be said to be natural to man. He has it from his birth 
(Ps. li. 5.) He begins accountable existence with it, 
preventing grace apart. It is no part of the human 
nature as God made it ; is the effect of the apostacy ; 
but through the apostacy it is the sad inheritance of 
man, and may be figuratively termed a second nature. 
This the Christian ministry preach, as the fundamen- 



us IMPOTENCE OF WILL: 

tal fact on which Christianity is built. And it pre- 
sents a question of great moment, as to appeals to nat- 
ural power in preaching. Man is still man, a creature 
having the power proper to man ; but, as to a holy use of 
it, it is as none, because of a bias or disposition to evil 
which underlies it ; as it were, a second nature. Now 
the question just referred to is this : Shall we, on the 
ground simply of man's having natural power, urge 
the holy exercise of it, just as if this hindrance to such 
an exercise of it, did not make it certain, that he will 
not, of himself alone, exercise it thus ? The certainty 
is known to us, and we endeavor to acquaint him with 
it ; we state the evidence of it to him ; we require him 
to believe it ; we would have him feel as we ourselves 
do, that his existence is not more certain, than that he, 
if left to himself, will continue to exercise liis natural 
power as he has been doing in servitude to sin. Shall 
we still urge him to the holy use of it, simply on the 
ground of his having it? Self-evident it indeed is, 
that he is under obligation so to use it ; his having it 
involves this ; he ought so to use it, and will stand 
condemned before God and his own conscience if he 
does not ; nevertheless, if he 'is to believe what with 
so much earnestness we tell him, will he have any 
more motive or reason to exert himself as we require, 
than he would, if natural power did not belong to 
him ? Though he is without excuse, though sin is sin, 
even when committed in a state of absolute despair, 
yet despair — the certainty of continuing in an existing 
state of sin — this certainty felt and in force on the 
mind, as in the supposed case it would be, is, by the 



WILL-NOT A REAL CAN-NOT. 119 

uncliangeable law of voluntary activity, no less effectu- 
al to hinder even the attempting a change of state, 
than natural impotence itself. Let the question be 
considered : Should preaching, since the fact is indu- 
bitably so, ever limit the ground of its urgency with 
unrenewed men, simply and absolutely, to their having 
natural power? Under the circumstances, what were 
more absurd than even an attempt to do what would 
be required of them ? Nor can we conceive of their 
making an attempt in earnest. Palpably, therefore, 
they must not be shut up to this consideration, as a 
reason for their making one. There is, in truth, no 
persuasive force in it whatever, taken by itself. It is 
deprived of all such force by the pressure of despair. 
Some door of hope must be opened to ejffort, or effort 
will, nay, cannot but be forborne. The mind is so 
made that it cannot exert itself in such a case. Some 
other argument must be used, which will not leave the 
door of hope closed and barred. Along with natural 
power, mention must be made of some other power 
whereby the holy use of natural power may be brought 
about. That is to say : the proffered Help and Pres- 
ence of the Holy Spirit must be announced to the un- 
converted in the way of encouragement. 

Let it not seem that there is no need of saying this ; 
there has been, if there be not still, a delinquency in 
preaching in regard to it. Has not preaching re- 
frained, on theory, — from setting forth the hope of 
the co-operation of the Spirit, as a motive to exer- 
tion, previous to conversion ? By divers considera- 
tions, it has sought to set natural power into 



120 IMPOTENCE OF WILL: 

exercise, but the hope of the Spirit's co-operation, 
it did not, and, with theoretic consistency, could 
not, insist upon. This co-operation was promised 
on the condition of actual repentance ; but it was not 
held forth as an indispensable motive to repentance. 
The unconverted were pressed to repentance, just and 
only because they had natural power. Having it they 
were under obligation, and it was demanded of them 
to fulfill their obligation, to do their duty, because 
obligation and duty existed. With much persistency 
they were pressed to this ; and the course was wont 
to be justified by its tendency to beget self-despair, — 
an almost phrenzy of desperation, wherein they might 
perhaps hreah down^ as the phrase was, under a sheer 
necessity of an entire self-surrender to the Divine will, 
whatever it might be, concerning them. How strange 
the outrage which such a course obviously does to the 
principles of human action! What though grace be 
not necessary to accouutableness ? That is to say : 
What though the obligation of the unconverted have a 
sufficient ground in the fact of their having natural 
power, so that sin in all circumstances Is inexcusable ? 
If the object were simply to convict them, or break 
them down through despair, the course pursued might 
for that purpose have sufficed. But as the end which 
the preaching should have aimed at, was to win or 
convert them, nothing can be more glaring than the 
absurdity of this method. So far, this preaching was 
not the preaching of the Gospel : it was simply legal. 
The Gospel ignores and virtually condemns it. 



WILL-NOT A REAL CAN- NOT. 121 

But it may be that the day of preacliing, of this form, 
is past, and that it need not have been adverted to, 
except, perhaps, as indicating progress. Be this as it 
may, there is doubtless room for progress still, both in 
the theory and practice of preaching to the uncon- 
verted ; especially, it would seem, in regard to appeals 
to natural power, and the activity thence resulting, 
previous to conversion. Let this point for a moment 
engage our attention : — 

It often happens that awakened persons, under 
preaching, in general sound, are perplexed with what 
to them has a formidable aspect, the alternative of 
either sinning or doing nothing in order to their con- 
version. They understand the assertion that " what- 
soever is not of faith is sin,'' as teaching that all 
activity before conversion is sinful, and therefore for- 
bidden ; whence it seems to them, as they are not yet 
converted, the necessity exists, if their conversion is to 
have place, that it take place without previous agency 
of theirs, or by an agency which they ought not to 
use. Their case, therefore, is not, in their view, much 
different from what it would be, if they were thrown 
upon their own mere power, without the overture of 
aid from the Holy Spirit. As to activity or effort, in 
order to conversion, they are at an absolute stand. 
They must not commit new sin ; yet, since they are 
still unconverted, what else are they to do, if they do 
anything ? If they should hear, reflect, resolve, be 
active or exercised in any way, would they not herein 
be sinning, and so making their case worse ? This is 
far from an uncommon difficulty, and there have been 
6 



122 IMPOTENCE OF WILL: 

three methods of dealing with it in preaching. Some 
preachers have evaded or ignored, or possibly have 
not been aware of it. They have spoken to the 
awakened as if there were no cause or place for 
trouble to them from this source ; as if their way could 
not but be plain before them ; and, sometimes, they 
have pledged the promises of God to guarantee suc- 
cess, if they did but persevere in it. By others, to the 
demand from the awakened : — " How am I to repent ? 
What way must I take? Must I needs sin or do 
nothing?" this reply has been usually given: — "I 
have nothing to say as to the How, or the Means of 
repenting, I only say, Eepent, repent this instant, the 
next may be too late." Yet another answer has been 
made : " True, you will be sinning if you do anything 
before conversion, but you may be sinning more if you 
do nothing ;" and assuming a choice of evils to be 
inevitable, that was recommended which it was sup- 
posed was the less sinful of the two. How plainly 
can neither of these courses be justified ? The first is 
grossly discreditable to the pulpit j yet more so is the 
last, which expressly counsels what it admits to be 
sinning, as the way to conversion from sin, and that 
on the self-contradiction, that a choice between greater 
and less is admissible, where both are forbidden. The 
other, also, though under a show of logic, assumes 
what every one cannot but know to be untenable : as 
if there were indeed no place for preliminary atten- 
tion, or thought, or feeling, where conversion has not 
already had place : As if, e. g. when the jailer asked 
with trembling and astonishment, " What shall I do to 



WILL-NOT A REAL CAN-NOT. 123 

be saved ?" Paul should have said to him : " Yon are 
sinning in putting the question, and in being excited 
as you are." Or as if Peter should have made a like 
reply to his hearers, when pricked to the lieart, they 
asked, ^' What shall we do?" A psychological theory, 
or doctrinal creed which excludes such preliminary 
exercises as necessarily sinful, in this respect, most 
certainly, falsifies itself. The exercises in question are 
not spiritual, but neither are they to be rejected as 
necessarily carnal or sinful. The alternative of either 
doing nothing, or adding sin to sin previous to con- 
version, is without foundation or reality. There is 
no such alternative. It is not so that there must 
needs be sinning in all activity, antecedent, or in order 
to actual conversion. When God, seeking to bring 
sinners to repentance, challenges their attention, they 
do not sin in giving their attention. When, with 
reference to conversion, he urges them to consider 
their ways, he does not set them to doing what is in 
itself wrong. When convinced of sin, and alarmed at 
their danger, they seek to make their escape, and 
struggle against difficulties, and in their distress ask 
what they must do, and cry for help from above, their 
exercises, it is true, are not yet spiritual ; but they 
are not to be on any account blamed or regretted ; 
they are the regular response of simple nature to 
divine appeals to it ; a response, of which the absence 
would be sinful. God surely does not intend to pro- 
duce in us any impure excitement, but who knows not 
that He does address Himself to the nature He has 
given us ; to every part of our higher nature ; to 



124 IMPOTENCE OF WILL : 

reason, to conscience, to self-love, self-respect, etc. ; 
and this before and witn reference to conversion, as 
well as aftervs^ards ; and if the exercise of these ele- 
ments of our nature in immediate correspondence to 
His addresses, that is to say, an exercise of them, 
which, like the addresses, is before and with reference 
to actual conversion ; if this were necessarily sinful, 
is not God Himself, in this case, the responsible author 
of sin ? We ought to respond to His appeals ; we 
shall sin, with aggravation, if we do not ; if we must 
also sin, when we do respond to them, has He not 
laid us under a necessity of sinning, and in truth in- 
cited us to it ? 

The importance of this point justifies further re- 
mark. The preliminary exercise of the simple prop- 
erties of our nature, in brief, our natural power, is, 
in fact, the proper subjective means, whereby, through 
the grace of God, our nature recovers itself from the 
bondage of its corruption ; and it is precisely this 
which suasory preaching, whether aware of the fact 
or not, aims and labors to produce in its hearers, in 
all its applications to them previous to conversion. 
In other words, through natural power exercising 
itself as it may without being as yet under grace, it 
seeks to bring men into a state of grace, the ultimate 
end of preaching. It does not stimulate this power 
to the doing of that, apart from grace, of which it 
publishes the certainty, that grace apart, it never 
will do ; but to the doing of what it unquestionably 
may do, and of what it must do, as the condition 
of the removal by grace of the ground of certainty 



WILL-NOT A REAL GAN-NOT. 125 

aforesaid, and a consequent just use of natural 
power. 

It is of necessity that we take this course in preach- 
ing ; we could otherwise do absolutely nothing in the 
way of earnest persuasion. How could we begin ? 
Recognizing man as under a certainty, equivalent in 
effect to a necessity, of sinning, we should not be more 
incapable of earnestness in addressing stones or the 
dead, than in urging him to repentance. Earnestness 
depends on hope, instead of which, there is, in this case, 
by the terms of the statement, absolute despair of the 
desired result from the course pursued ; it would be 
pressing men, in the mere exercise of natural power, 
to what it could not expect from them, as the result 
of this exercise : in this it is impossible it should be 
in earnest ; it would be strictly absurd ; and to hope 
for the divine co-operation with it, would be looking 
to God to sanctify absurdity by lending Himself 
to it. 

Surely there is a possibility, a place of beginning, 
to earnest persuasion in the pulpit! Shall a theory 
be accepted which implies that there is none ? Man- 
ifestly there is no such place or possibility, if man is 
required to look on himself as under the alternative 
of either sinning or doing nothing in order to conver- 
sion. Persuasion to doing nothing is inconceivable ; 
and persuasion to sinning, is, itself, whether it means 
so or not, doing what it urges. There is, therefore, 
some form of allowable activity, which, though it is 
not spiritual, is not of the nature of sin. Man in a 
state of sin, and man in a state of grace, are, indeed, 



126 IMPOTENCE OF WILL: 

the two terms set before the preacher. Man ha? to 
start from the first, and not to stop short of the second. 
He remains in the first if he be not actually in the sec- 
ond. If he should die before completing the transi- 
tion from the first to the second, he would die in his 
sins. In man himself, however, there is somewhat 
common to both states, namely the constitutional ele- 
ments of humanity, or our natural power. He has 
this — otherwise he were not man — in both. He has 
it in the transition from the one to the other. In 
this transition he has and he exercises his natural 
power, which exercise of it is not already spiritual, 
else he were not still in the transition ; yet neither, 
if the transition be transition indeed, is it sinful. 
But, on the contrary, being necessary to conversion, 
it is virtually included in the call to conversion, and 
the suppression or absence of it were a contempt of 
that call. This preliminary or intermediate activity, 
destitute though it be of spirituality, is the condition 
of conversion. Take it away, leave no place for it, 
and the Gospel and man can never be brought to- 
gether, except by miracle or without the use of any 
appropriate means. 

A word on the form of this transitional activity, or 
the particular exercises and efforts of which it con- 
sists. These, it is obvious, are different in different 
cases. In general they should be such, whatever these 
be, as are comprehended in a just response of nature 
to the appeals which are made to it with reference to 
conversion. These appeals are not always met or 
heeded at once. N"ature, perhaps, is not sufficiently 



WILL-NOT A REAL CAN-NOT. 127 

awake to recognize them. Perhaps they have to 
make their way against manifold impediments and 
disadvantages ; previous instruction, argumentation, 
reproof, remonstrance, may be necessary ; and after 
the contact with nature has been eflfected, she may be 
thrown into strife with herself, reason contending with 
passion, conscience with the heart, the will with inte- 
rest ; whence indirection, wavering, delay, obliquity 
in the course of the action. Such, more or less, is 
the general fact. Sometimes, on the contrary, the 
activity would almost seem to be normal or faultless. 
When it is so, the end is near. Nature cannot be 
true to herself without yielding herself up to the 
dominion of truth. Swift as time, now, is the prog- 
ress to conversion. Let preachers understand this. 
Let them study psychology. Let them acquaint them- 
selves completely with the many-stringed instrument 
they are required to play on. Let them learn to play 
on it skillfully, so that there shall be no discord, no 
movement too slow or rapid, no pitch too high or low, 
nothing but pure harmony, the sweet concert of all 
nature's powers and feelings. This should be their 
aim ; with all possible earnestness, intelligence and 
tact, should they pursue it ; never forgetting that to 
themselves and their hearers, the present opportunity 
may be the last. 

But the whole truth has not yet been told. Where 
the response of nature terminates in actual conversion, 
the result is not from nature, but from the special grace 
of the Holy Spirit. It is not in nature to remove the 
ground of the certainty of continuing under sin. It is 



128 IMPOTENCE OF WILL: 

not in nature to do this, even under the best advant- 
ages of common grace. Though it is done through an 
exercise of natural power, under external appliances, 
it is not this that does it. Something happened to na- 
ture in the fall which made recovery impracticable by 
any merely natural operation. It retained its essen- 
tial elements, otherwise it were no longer the human 
nature. It still was and is a living, active, responsible 
power ; but as to a holy use of its faculties, it became 
blind, torpid, dead. Deep within fallen nature itself 
lies the ground of its certain continuance in a state of 
sin. A renovation, a " nev/ birth " of nature is neces- 
sary, in order to render it properly susceptive of pure 
influences from without ; in order, indeed, to its having 
any appreciative views of the objects towards which 
its highest activity is demanded. 

The question has been asked : " Can man regener- 
ate himself?" This is asking whether man can do a 
work proper to God. Or whether that which is be- 
gotten or born of God, may also be begotten or born 
of man. Man has no power of any kind, directly to 
regenerate himself He is not required to do this, he 
is required to do only what he can do. He is required 
to be active in order to regeneration ; generally — not 
always, otherwise no infants are regenerated, — but 
generally, he is active in the regenerative process ; but 
the work of regeneration itself, is no more his work 
than his generation or creation. For this work man 
has no natural power. To reverse that law, whereby 
after sinning, a disposition to sin became as a second 
nature ; to displace the ground in which this disposition 



WILL-NOT A REAL CAN-NOT. 129 

is rooted ; to put nature back to where it was before 
the fall, this belongs to no human power ; God alone 
can do it, and it were absurd to set man about it. He 
may be set to doing what may be connected with it as 
a means ; and what may result in it, under Divine 
direction and influence ; and so, in a figurative 
way of speaking, he may be required to regenerate 
himself. The command of Scripture, " Make you a 
new heart," is equivalent to this : If men would obey 
this command, their activity would result in regenera- 
tion ; having a new heart, supposes regeneration. But 
the making a new heart is to be done in some mode or 
by some means, and by a familiar use of language, that 
which is done in the use of means, is spoken of as if it 
were done by the instrumental agency itself, though 
in truth it is the product of the Divine power : as when 
we say, e.g. that a planter has made himself bread- 
corn, or a sick man made himself well ] not meaning 
to deny that man might as soon make a world from 
nothing, as do either of these by a direct act of his 
own power or will. 

What has been said on this subject may be briefly 
expressed in the following propositions : 

1 . Man's natural power is power to do what is pro- 
per to man, by virtue of his having the human nature, 
or being man. 

2. Since the fall, the natural power of man is sub- 
ject to the control of a disposition to sin, which 
makes it certain that left to himself he will remain in 
this subjection. 

3. The Gospel bringing grace to man, makes ap- 

6-^ 



130 IMPOTENCE OF WILL. 

peals to his natural power with reference to his 
conversion, or recovery from servitude to sin. 

4. As it is certain and known that, left to him- 
self, man will abide in servitude to sin, or an un- 
converted state, and so believing would, on the mere 
ground of his having natural power, be without hope 
from effort, and could not earnestly attempt it ; he is 
therefore, not to be set to exert himself, simply on this 
ground ; but, on the contrary, is to be animated to 
effort by the overture of help from the co-operation of 
the Holy Spirit. 

5. All activity previous or preliminary to actual 
conversion, is not necessarily of the nature of sin : 
some such activity is generally necessary to conversion, 
and is therefore virtually required in the call to it. 
The activity which is necessary to conversion is not 
already spiritual, but neither is it sinful. It is not spir- 
itual, because conversion has not place as yet ; it is 
not sinful, because conversion is not attainable without 
it. The activity which, in fact, generally precedes 
conversion, is different in different cases : it is seldom, 
if ever, without much fault. When it is as it should 
be, it admits of no obliquity, delay, or wavering, but 
proceeds directly to its end. 

6. When activity, in order to conversion, terminates 
in it, it does this, not of itself, but by a special agency 
of the Holy Spirit, whereby our corrupted nature is 
renewed and restored. 



VII. 

THEORY OF PREPARATION FOR PREACHING. 



1. Amidst the diversities of practice in preparing for 
the pulpit, are there no principles to be inviolably fol- 
lowed ? Is there no theory of preparation ? Undoubt- 
edly there is ; and, assured that the intelligent appli- 
cation of theory to practice, in this as in every other 
case, cannot but be useful, we shall attempt a brief 
analysis of our subject. If what we have to say shall 
incline none to change or modify the method to which 
they have been accustomed, our sketch may possibly 
be of some advantage to those who are yet to form a 
habit of preparation. We have to do with a difficult 
subject, and one which demands our earnest and pa- 
tient thought. 

2. We sometimes have to preach without having 
had opportunity to prepare a sermon for the occasion. 
The call is unexpected, but our duty to meet it is plain ; 
and if indifference, or timidity, or a too scrupulous 
respect to reputation, do not hinder — if the love of 
Christ and of souls be the strongest impulse of our 
ministry — we shall in a few moments, be in the pulpit, 

(131) 



132 THEORY OF PREPARATION 

delivering a discourse, not from a manuscript or mem- 
ory, but extempore, in the strictest sense of the word. 
We should not be backward to improve these emer- 
gent, out of season, occasions. They are probably 
among our best opportunities of doing good ; and the 
sudden demands now made upon us, may not be more 
extraordinary than the excellence of our preaching, 
if we meet them bravely and promptly. Perhaps, after 
our most elaborate preparations, we have never 
preached better than we shall preach now. We may 
outdo ourselves. We may have very unwonted if not 
supernatural ability for our work. Our speaking may 
be less our own than that of the Spirit of our Father 
speaking in us. We know not what unusual and won- 
derful experiences of Divine aid, what depths and 
heights of spiritual insight and feeling, what surpris- 
ing enlargements of thought and expression, what 
special advantages for doing and getting infinite good 
we might resign, by declining to meet these abrupt 
calls to testify the Gospel of the grace of God. 

3. It is the high and singular distinction of Preach- 
ing or spiritual eloquence — and this is our chief guide 
in the inquiry we are pursuing — that the supreme and 

DOMINATING PART IN IT, BELONGS TO THE HOLY GhOST^ 

In the apostles, and other primitive ministers, nay, 
even in our Divine Master Himself, the sufficiency for 
preaching was from a special unction and co-operation 
of the Spirit of God.^" In reproducing the inspired 
word by preaching, there is, as there was pre-eminently 

* Luke iv. 18, 19. Compare verses i. 14, and Acts i. 2 ; 1 Pet. 
i. 13 ; 1 Cor. ii. 13 ; Acts i. 8, ii. 4. vii. 55, xi. 34. 



FOR PREACHING. 133 

in the first inditing of that word, a Divine-Human 
agency, in which as it was, in the higher case also, the 
Human is wholly subordinate and subservient to the 
Divine. The man in preaching is but an organ, though 
a living, free, self-active organ, of the Holy Spirit, who 
dwells and works within him to make him competent 
for what he does. The part of the Spirit in preaching 
is essentially different, and never to be undistinguished 
from that which he performs in original inspiration ; 
but it is special and paramount ; the preacher can do 
nothing as he ought, if he be left to himself. " We are 
not sufiScient of ourselves,'^ said a representative 
preacher, " to think anything as of ourselves." It is 
denying the substantive difference between preaching 
and natural eloquence to make the former the product, 
or a possible achievement, of merely human capabili- 
ties. There is, it is true, nothing in the structure of 
a sermon which is not referable to the human powers, 
as the directly producing cause ; but a true sermon, 
is never produced by these powers of themselves ; it 
comes from an exercise of them, originated, sustained 
and made adequate to its result, by a distinctive and 
special operation of the Holy Ghost. Preaching, the 
kind of discourse which God requires as the fit medium 
and vehicle of His spiritual power, is human, and yet 
not simply natural eloquence ; the manner as well as 
the matter, the very diction of it is spiritual : " Which 
things we speak not in words which man's wisdom 
teacheth; but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comhia- 
ing spiritual things with spiritual words. ^ My speech 

* See Calvin, Beza, and Hodge, in loc. The apostle dis- 



134 THEORY OF PREPARATION 

and my preaching was not with enticing words of 
man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and 
of power." A true preacher is a spiritual man ; the 
natural man has no perception of the things of the 
Spirit, the material of preaching ; he may have notions 
of these things and if he be an eloquent speaker, he 
may discourse on them eloquently ; but he can make 
no spiritual discourse ; this requires more than notions 
or forms of the understanding ; it is from spiritual 

tinguislies, (v. 12,) between revelation and spiritual knowledge of 
tlie things revealed ; and here, speaking of the expression of 
these things in preaching, he says that this also was of the 
Spirit. He does not mean that his language in preaching was 
dictated to him directly, as if he had been no more than an 
amanuensis. His contrasting the teaching of words by the Spir- 
it, with the teaching of words by man's wisdom shows this, 
Man's wisdom teaches the use of language not by dictating 
words to us, but by giving us through intellectual discipline and 
culture, the command of this wisdom's words : the principle of 
contrast suggests a parallel method, in the Spirit's teaching, as 
to words. The words taught by him in this way, are no less 
from him, than the words of which one has the use, through a 
liberal education, are from man's wisdom. If we are enabled to 
speak the words we use in preaching no otherwise than through 
subjective preceptions and apprehensions, imparted by the influ- 
ence of the Spirit ; if through the operation of the Spirit we ac- 
commodate the words to the subject, so that, " as the things we 
teach are spiritual, our mode of teaching them is in like manner 
spiritual," it is strictly proper to ascribe the language we use to 
the teaching of the Spirit. In a true sense he gives us this lan- 
guage though he does not pronounce it to our ear. But the apos. 
tie himself explains what he means by the Spirit's teaching him 
words, in the expression before us : " Combining spiritual things 
wiih spiritual words." His preaching, both as to matter and 
expression, was different from ours in that it was in both these 
respects, infallible ; but ours also should in all respects be spir- 
itual, or of the special influence of the Holy Spirit. 



FOR PREACHING. 135 

discernment of the infinite things themselves. Preach- 
ing pre-supposes intellectual knowledge, but this 
knowledge, though one of the conditions of preaching, 
is not its direct producer ; it comes from " a sense of 
the divine excellency of the things of the Spirit and a 
conviction of the truth and reality of them, thence 
arising."^' There is the same essential difference be- 
tween preaching and unspiritual eloquence, that there 
is between spiritual and natural life ; only, as the 
exercises of spiritual life in preaching are, from the 
nature of the business, highly peculiar and unique, 
correspondently so is preaching itself, the sum and the 
name of these exercises. 

4. We see, then, what a preacher is about when he 
is preparing a sermon. We have before us the sort 
of discourse he has set himself to construct. A dif- 
ferent sort will not, cannot come from an operation in 
which the Spirit has the causal influence. Unspiritual 
discourse is neither from Him, nor will He take it as a 
fit instrument to work by, in effecting His proper pur- 
pose. He may, indeed, in some way make use of it. 
He knows how to use. He knows how to serve Himself 
of material uncongenial, and antagonistic to His pur- 
pose. Through His sovereign wisdom and grace He 
may turn an unspiritual sermon into an occasion of 
giving spiritual life. As by touching the dry bones 
of a prophet, the dead body of a man was once rean- 
imated, it is not incredible that the Spirit may some- 
times quicken dead souls into life, under preaching, so 
called, which has no soul-quickening virtue in itself. 
* Edwards on tlie Reality of Spiritual Light. 



136 THEORY OF PREPARATION 

But as He does not produce, so He never authenticates 
or approves, such discourse. However orthodox and 
eloquent it may be, it is not according to His raind, 
it is not homogeneal with the Divine nature ; its ten- 
dency is not spiritual ; and He seldom attends it, in 
any way, with His effectual agency. The sermons He 
is most pleased with are such as approximate most 
nearly to His own preaching in the oracles of God. 
In manner and spirit, as well as in matter, the Bible 
is the pattern, the exemplar to the pulpit. Second- 
hand preaching is without the infallible inspiration 
which dictated the Scripture ; but the mind and life 
of the Holy Spirit permeate this preaching also. A 
true sermon is of the same temper and purpose with 
the Bible ; the same in assimilation with the spirit- 
uality of God ; the same in inconsistence with evil 
and vanity ; the same in attractiveness to Christ and 
heaven ; the same in antagonism to whatever imperils 
the soul and the immortality of man. No human 
preaching is perfect ; but a true preacher strives after 
perfection, and the Bible is his standard. 

5. The supremacy of the Spirit's agency requires 
the preacher, not the less, but the moee, to attend 
TO HIS part of the WORK. Though the sermon is, 
at last, the result of two combined agencies, the 
agencies have not the same direct purpose. That of 
the Spirit is not the sermon, but the preparation of 
the preacher. The Divine-Human in preaching is not, 
as to its ultimate product, altogether what it is in 
Scripture. In Scripture the Human is never the in- 
strument of error ; in preaching, as we just now said, 



FOB P BEACHING. 137 

the liberty of man is not secured against abuse. The 
preachei*, though a spiritual, is far from being a per- 
fect man. His sermon, though made with the Spirit's 
co-operation, is his own immediate work, the direct 
fruit of his own labor. The Spirit does but help 
him to help himself ; his freedom is not abridged ; he 
has special assistance from the Spirit, but he may ne- 
glect and frustrate it. By inattention, by indolence, 
by haste, by self-wisdom, by ambition, by aspiring 
after eminence in his work, he may cross and thwart 
the working of the Spirit within him. Even pro- 
phetic inspiration left entire liberty to the will of the 
prophet. " The spirit of the prophets was subject to 
the prophets." More than once the anger of the Lord 
was kindled against Moses himself. No man should 
guard himself more watchfully against the neglect or 
perversion of advantages, than he in whom the Spirit 
is working with reference to his having ability in 
preparing to preach. Paul has left all preachers an 
example as to their method and measure, in the entire 
exercise of their ministry : " Whereunto I labor, striv- 
ing according to his working, who worketh in me 
mightily."^ 

6. The nature of preaching as spiritual work — 
work not to be done without the co-operation of the 
Spirit — acquaints us with the part which prayer has 
IN PREPARING FOR IT. Sclf-evidently, prayer, as a 
means, is required before every other, and is, virtu- 
ally at least, continued and ascendant in every other. 
If a spiritual discourse is not a possible achievement 
* Col. i. 29. 



138 THEORY OF PREPARATION 

of natural power, to attempt one independently of the 
aid of the Holy Spirit were a plain absurdity ; and 
since the Spirit is present to impart His aid, the at- 
tempt were impious, an insult to the Infinite Spirit, as 
well as absurd. But not without intentional and con- 
scious effort on the preacher's part, directed to that 
end, is the power of the Spirit developed in congenial 
concurrence with his activity. The Divine does not 
concur with the Human in this free and holy opera- 
tion, but at the urgent and continued exertion of the 
Human. Even in the ordinary work of sanctification, 
in which also the Divine and Human are combined,* 
this is the case \ and may it be otherwise in this high 
and special work of holy power ? May a man make 
a sermon, without consciously looking to the Spirit 
and seeking His assistance, when, without doing this, 
he cannot read the Scriptures, or do aught else as he 
should? It is an intuition of conscience that a 
preacher is required, by the business of his vocation, 
to be, above others, a man of prayer. It was but 
natural, the dictate of common reason, that the apos- 
tles should think of instituting a new office in the 
Church when they saw that otherwise they would be 
hindered in giving themselves to prayer and the 
ministry of the word. And was it with no reference 
to what was needful to ordinary preachers, that the 
pre-eminence of their Master and Lord, in connecting 
the practice of prayer with the exercise of His minis- 
try, has been so particularly and pointedly recorded 
by the evangelists ? What a lesson is it to common 
* Phil. ii. 12, 13. 



FOR PREAGHINa. 139 

preachers, as to the place they should give to 
prayer in their plan of labor, that the greatest of all 
the inspired ministers of Christ, in nearly all his epis- 
tles, makes specific mention of his own habit in regard 
to prayer f and asks so fervently the prayers of the 
Church ; t and particularly, that they would pray that 
God would assist him in the worh of pr caching. % 
Is it surprising that the great models of the pulpit 
had their fellowship with their Lord and His chief 
apostle in this spiritual habit? that Luther gave 
many of his best Iiours every day to earnest wrestling 
with God ; showing thus his faith in his own motto 
{bene orasse^ hcne studuisse) ; and doubtless how he 
came to adopt it as his motto ? that Whitfield's prepa- 
rations were chiefly made on his knees at the mercy- 
seat ? that the main business of Bruce in preparation 
was the elevation of his heart into a holy and rever- 
ential frame, and in pouring it out before God in 
wrestling prayer ? Is it not manifest that this, in 
truth, must be the main business with every preacher 
who really regards preaching as an impossibility to 
man without aid from above? He will, of course, 
give to the work, study, invention, the closest applica- 
tion of his mind, the highest use of his talent, learn- 
ing, culture ; but in all, and more than all, he will be 
praying in spirit with all prayer and supplication, 
that the Holy Spirit may not cease to work mightily 
within him, illuminating, sanctifying, strengthening 

* 1 Thess. iii. 10 ; Col. i 3 ; Philip i. 4 ; Rom. i. 19 ; Eph. i. 16 ; 
2 Tim. i. 3 ; Pliil. iv. 
f Rom. XV. 30 ; 2 Cor. i. 3. % Eph. vl. 14 ; 1 Tliess. v. 25, 



140 THEORY OF PREPARATION 

directing the exercise of his faculties, until he has 
completed his preparation. 

7. Advancing further with our inquiry, we come at 
once to the question : Whether writing is to be 
INCLUDED IN THE WORK? Is Composition essential 
to the best preparation? In the absolute sense, 
no ; but yes, yes, with emphasis, relatively to general 
proficiency. In some instances we may prepare bet- 
ter without than with writing ; we sometimes preach 
better when we have no manuscript, not even a brief ; 
but, on the whole, the highest success in preparing 
requires the use of the pen. " The pen is the best, 
the most excellent former and director of the tongue. 
However long a person may practice spontaneous 
elocution, he can never command admiration without 
practice in writing ; and the man who after using his 
pen shall come to the bar, will carry along with him 
this advantage, that though he shall speak without 
previous meditation, yet what he will deliver will 
have the air of correct composition ; and further, if 
at any time he shall use the assistance of notes, as 
soon as he lays them aside the remaining part of his 
speech will be of a piece with the preceding. As a 
boat under sail, though the rowers suspend their 
efforts, the vessel still moves in the same direction as 
when impelled by the impulse of the oars ; so in a 
continued discourse, when no longer supplied with 
notes, yet the remaining part proceeds in the same 
strain, by the resemblance and strength acquired from 
composition."* What is here so well said, has a 

* Cicero. 



FOB PREACHINO. 141 

special claim to the attention of the ministers of the 
Word. The discourse of the pulpit, more than all 
other public speaking, ought to be chaste in style and 
diction, as well as of masculine strength and force. 
The subject matter of it, the excellence and nobleness 
of its purpose, the criticism it has to meet, and, let it 
be added impressively, its great claim as of Divine- 
Human texture, demand for it, not only an absolute 
exemption from whatever is coarse, commonplace, pro- 
vincial, but the highest classical simplicity and purity. 
What an indignity were it, to use the striking image 
of Foster, " to impose the guise of a cramped, formal, 
ecclesiastic on what is destined for a universal mon- 
arch." Moreover, the advance of society heightens 
the duty of the pulpit, to be in the advance, as an 
instrument of popular refinement and culture in all 
respects, and especially in the use of language, which 
besides being a mark of cultivation has no remote con- 
nection with moral improvement. The times require 
of the pulpit a higher order of discourse. One of the 
first thinkers and writers of the age, tells us : " It is 
necessary at the present day, in order to banish from 
the threshold of conscience, prejudices which to cer- 
tain minds of a fastidious character, may be a lasting 
hindrance, that evangelical discourse should not be 
unpolished and rude ; it is necessary that, when com- 
pared with other products of the understanding, it 
should not appear chargeable with any kind of infe- 
riority, and that no one should have it to say, with 
any appearance of reason, that it is only the ears of 
the vulgar of which it has the command. And let it 



142 THEOBT OF PREPARATION 

not be imagined that the merit of an elaborate com- 
position may be anywhere lost from its not being 
everywhere appreciated. In all minds true excellence 
and true beauty find a point in which they are felt. 
Their intimate congeniality with all the wants of the 
soul, enable them at length to penetrate it. The dis- 
cernment of just expressions and silent forms gradu- 
ally becomes an instinct with the multitude ; and the 
preacher's care as to the logic of his composition, and 
the texture of his language, gives him a new authority 
over the people, whereby he becomes not only their 
spiritual guide, but, in many respects, their law-giver.^'* 

8. It would then, doubtless, be perilous to the credit 
and honor of preaching, to forbear writing as a means 
of preparing for the pulpit. Few, even of educated 
preachers, men of literary talent, could, preach no other 
than unwritten sermons, without incurring blemishes 
of elocution, which might seriously impair their gen- 
eral influence as public speakers. They would be in 
danger of becoming more or less inexact, repetitious, 
disorderly, if not even slovenly, not only in diction, 
but in thinking and reasoning also. This danger has 
been actualized in too many examples. 

9. But it should be added, on the other hand, and 
with strong accent, that if writing for the pulpit be 
important, not less so ake the capacity and the 

HABIT OF PREPARATION WITHOUT WRITFNG. Generally, 

indeed, this latter mode of preparation is a condition 
of the highest success in the other mode. Better that 
a preacher should write no sermons than compose as 

* Vinet's Installation Discourse. 



FOB PBE ACHING. 143 

many as he will probably have to preach. Of three 
sermons a week, the least number usually required, he 
would hardly have time for more than the bare hand- 
writing. Unless he has uncommon facility of compo- 
sition, he cannot write well, more than one at the 
utmost. And the utility of the liabit of composition 
depends on the care given to the work. Better that 
one should do all his preaching extemporaneously, 
than practise no other than negligent, hasty, extempo- 
raneous writing. But what is a preacher's resource, 
if, having three sermons to preach, he write only one ? 
Either, he must use other men's sermons, or repeat his 
own, or prepare to preach without writing. The first, 
however allowable, elsewhere, is inadmissible with us ; 
the second, after a while will make his preaching in 
sipid to his hearers, as well as next to intolerable to 
himself. Without great disadvantage and loss of 
influence, he cannot repeat to his stated hearers, more 
than once or twice, discourses which they will remem- 
ber — " What eloquence is that of a man whose hearer 
knows beforehand all his expressions, and his moving 
appeals ? A likely way indeed, to surprise, to aston- 
ish, to soften, to convince, to persuade men ! A 
strange method of concealing art and letting nature 
speak ! For my part, I say that all this offends me. 
What ! shall a steward of the mysteries of God, be an 
idle declaimer, jealous of his reputation, and ambitious 
of vain pomp ? Shall he not venture to speak of God 
to his people, without having arranged all his words, 
and learned like a school boy his lesson by heart?"* 
* Fenelon. 



144 THEORY OF PBEPABATION 

The tliird is the only remaining means ; he must pre- 
-pare to preach luithout writing. Plagiarism and the 
too oft repetition of the same discourse apart, extem- 
poraneous preaching would seem to be a necessity. 

10. And this means, which there appears to bo 
hardly any way of dispensing with, has its own very 
HIGH RECOMMENDATION. Along with the Other, and in 
larger measure than that can well have, it enhances, 
on the whole, tlie utility of a protracted course of 
preaching. Indeed, valuable as well written discourses 
are in other respects, their chief advantage, ultimately, 
both to the preacher and his hearers, is from the in- 
fluence they have on the preparation to preach extem- 
poraneously. Certain it is, that the ideal of excellence 
in preaching, is unattainable when the delivery is from 
full notes.* Extemporizing in itself is the best way 
of speaking, the natural way, the only speaking in- 
deed, in the strict sense of the term.t Each of the 
other ways, reading, reciting, reproducing from a man- 
uscript, has somewhat in it, which nature would hardly 
suggest or allow in such an occupation as that of ad- 
dressing, speaking to, an assembly.]; Neither of them 
is often if ever used, in other kinds of eloquence. Does 
the singularity of the pulpit in using them so freely as 
it has done, admit of an apology? A great master in 

* " To read in a manuscript book as our clergy now do, is not 
to preacli at all. Preach out of a book if you must, but do not 
read in it or even from it. A read sermon of twenty minutes will 
seem longer to tbe hearers than a free discourse of an hour." — 
Coleridge. 

f Whately's Rhetoric. 

X " Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit." — Juvenal. 



FOR PREACHING. 145 

the ministry of the word has said : " The people must 
be taught in a manner that they may be inwardly con- 
vinced, and made to feel the truth of what the apostle 
says, that ' the word of God is a two-edged sword, 
piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and 
spirit, the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the 
thoughts and intents of the heart. '^ There is too little 
of living preaching in your kingdom (England) ; ser- 
mons there have been mostly read or recited. True 
and faithful servants of God ought not to wish to 
shine in the ornaments of rhetoric, or effect great 
things thereby ; but the Spirit of God should be 
ECHOED BY THEIR VOICE, and SO givo birth to virtue. 
No possible danger must he permitted to abridge the lib- 
erty of ike Spirit of God, or p7'event his free course 
among those he has adorned with his graces for the edi- 
fying of the Church,''^ ^ 

11. This last remark of Calvin should be as a loud 
warning to preachers, when writing discourses for the 
pulpit. Both in preparing and preaching from manu- 
scripts, there is special danger of abridging the lib- 
erty OF THE Spirit, in His part of the work. From 
neither, as we have before insisted, is His peculiar 
agency to be for a moment abstracted. Writing is the 
preacher's business ; he puts himself in it, if he does it 
in earnest ; and he is very apt, from the nature of the 
operation, to be in it by himself and to do it in too 
exclusive self reliance ; and when he has done it, to 
restrict himself to what he has written, ignoring the 
Spirit's province and right, in the actual work of 
* Letter of Jolin Calvin to Somerset. 

7 



146 THEOBT OF PEEPABATIOIT 

preaching, even to the end. He is in peril of doing 
this in the other way of preaching also ; but his lia- 
bility to it is special, when he uses a completely writ- 
ten discourse. And he knows not what his preaching 
may lose if he does abridge the Spirit's liberty in it. 
By far the best part of preaching is often from the un- 
anticipated assistances of the Holy Spirit. "The 
salient points of Whitfield's oratory, were not prepar- 
ed passages ; they were bursts of passion, like the jets 
of a geyser when the spring is in full play."" " The 
degree," says Thomas Scott, " in which after the most 
careful preparation for the pulpit, new thoughts, new 
arguments, animated addresses often flow into my 
mind, while speaking to the congregation on very com- 
mon subjects, makes me feel as if I was quite another 
man, than when poring over them in my study." A 
preacher, whom we know, has related of himself, that 
when discoursing from Heb. xi. 5, he had such a sense 
given to him at the moment, of the patriarch's privi- 
lege there mentioned (" before his translation he had 
the testimony that he pleased God,") that he was en- 
abled to enlarge on it, nearly half an hour, in an 
almost rapture, which made him nearly unconscious 
of what he was doing or where he was, yet as he gath- 
ered from a reporter, without inflation of style, or any 
kind of excess ; making discourse, he believed, never 
equalled by himself, before or afterwards. There 
have been instances yet more remarkable— instances 
wherein the Holy Spirit, in the exercise of His sover- 
eign right in the business of the pulpit, has displaced 
* Soutliey, 



FOR PREACHING. 147 

altogether the preacher's precomposed sQrinon, by one 
spontaneously preached by hinn from the same, or an- 
other text. "The Rev. Dr. Dickson, handed me* on 
Saturday evening, his sermon for Sabbatli morning, to 
read, and I went to church expecting to hear him 
preach it : He took the same text, but not one idea 
of what he had written and I read, did he utter. At 
dinner, he asked, if I had observed anything at church. 
Yes. What was it? Why, sir, you took your Satur- 
day evening text, but you uttered not one idea on it 
you had written to preach. I thought you would no- 
tice it. I got such a new and precious view of my 
text, when in prayer, that I put my sermon in the 
Bible and spoke just as I saw and felt." It would be 
presumptuous hastily to refer sudden pulpit experi- 
ences to the direct agency of the Holy Spirit, but it 
may be no less so to determine arbitrarily that they are 
not from Him : they may be from Him ; it is within 
His province to give them ; and no possible danger 
miLst he permitted to abridge His liberty, 

12. The very idea of extemporizing, supposes that 

THE WORDS OF THE DISCOURSE ARE UNPREMEDITATED. 

In this consists the difference between the two meth- 
ods of preaching. The matter of an extemporaneous 
sermon should be as well prepared as that of one 
which is written ; excepting what may be supplied by 
a sudden movement of the Spirit, the whole ought to 
be premeditated and predisposed. The only thing to 
be excepted is the language ; and this precisely, the 

* We forget tlie reporter's name, but the anecdote is au- 
thentic. 



148 THEORY OF PREPARATION 

omission of the language, is what the term extenipora- 
neons, when applied to preaching, signifies. The words 
are improvised ; they come for the first time in the act 
of speaking. Preparation to preach extempore is 
sometimes partial ; that is to say, certain parts of the 
discourse, definition, division, passages requiring spe- 
cial exactness, color and grace of expression, are writ- 
ten, or words to express them fittingly premeditated 
at least. But in so far as these parts are concerned, 
the discourse is not extemporaneous. To prepare to 
preach extempore, is to prepare without choosing or 
thinking of words, previous to the delivery of the dis- 
course. The words spring into being at the exigence 
and command of the mind, in the business of speaking ; 
they are born in the pulpit, of the nisus and exercises 
of thought : and it is best for the discourse that they 
should there and thus originate ; any specific provision 
for them would require labor, much better given to 
the preparation of the matter. There is no cause 
whatever for anxiety concerning them. If the preach- 
er be not disqualified in some other respect, he may 
confidently and safely rely on being supplied with the 
language he will need. He may not have at command 
the niceties, and delicate coloring of expression, which 
he might introduce into an elaborate composition ; but 
these are not essential to good discourse, and perhaps 
they are not desirable. " Eloquence requires a more 
manly temper, and if its whole body be sound and vig- 
orous, it is quite regardless of the nicety of paring the 
nails, and adjusting the hair.""^ Let the words then 

* Quintilian. 



FOR PBEACHlM. 149 

be left to themselves : So the best extemporizers ad- 
vise. " Digest well your subject, but be not careful to 
choose your words previous to your delivery ; follow 
out the idea with such language as may offer at the 
moment."" " If any words of mine could be needed 
to reinforce the opinion of the most enchanting speak- 
er I ever heard, I should employ them in pressing on 
your mind, the counsel not to prepare your words. 
Certain preachers by a powerful constraining disci- 
pline, have acquired the faculty of mentally rehearsing 
the entij-e discourse they were to deliver, witli almost 
the precise language. This is manifestly no more ex- 
temporaneous preaching than if they had written down 
every word in a book. But if you would avail your- 
self of the plastic power of excitement in a great as- 
sembly, to create for the gushing thought, a word of 
fitting diction, you will not spend a moment on the 
words. Generally speaking, the best possible word is 
one which is born of the thought in the presence of the 
assembly, "t 

13. Should preparation to preach extempore include 
the preparation of a programme or brief to serve as 
A MNEMONIC IN THE PULPIT ? Not Ordinarily, for the 
generality of the preachers. Preachers who are not 
afraid to trust their memories, find more freedom in 
delivery, when they have no paper before them ; there 
is an interruption of the flow and continuity of utter- 
ance in casting the eyes often on a brief. Much more 
easy and agreeable is the manner of an orator, who, 
standing erect before his hearers in perfect independ- 

* Summerfield. f Dr. J. W. Alexander. 



150 THEORY OF PREPARATION 

ence of aid from notes, completes the delivery of 
liis speech. This was the manner of the most consum- 
mate extemporaneous preacher to whom we have ever 
listened."^^' It is strongly recommended by other mas- 
ters in the art. " If you press me to say which is 
absolutely the best practice, in regard to notes, pro- 
perly so called, that is in distinction from a complete 
manuscript, I unhesitatingly say, itse none / carry no 
scrap of writing into the pulpit. Let your scheme, 
with all its branches be written on your mental tablet. 
The practice will be invaluable. I know a preacher, 
about my own age, who has never employed a note of 
any kind."t 

14 The reason for the absence of notes, is more de- 
cisive, generally, against introducing prepared para- 
grajphs and pages into an extemporaneous sermon. The 
more elaborately they are written, the more ornate 
and exquisite their composition, the less their homoge- 
neity with the ordinary strain of spontaneous, unstud- 
ied elocution. Indeed, it is extremely difficult to hinder 
the effect of direct contrast between the latter and 
these elaborate appendages. " It requires the practice 
of years, and I doubt if even that would generally suf- 
fice, to dovetail an extemporaneous paragraph grace- 
fully into a written sermon ; "J; and to inweave a writ- 
ten paragraph into an extemporary sermon, would be 
a yet harder attempt. One may be assisted by the 
impulse of thought, or the swell of emotion, in deliver- 

* The immediate predecessor of Mr. Barnes in Philadelphia. 

f Dr. J. W Alexander. 

X Dr. Ale:s:ander : There are striking exceptions however. 



FOR PREACIIINQ. 151 

ing a written discourse, to produce an extemporaneous 
paragraph of a piece with the composition ; there 
is no like assistance in the other undertaking ; the pas- 
sag6 in this is from the natural into the artistic, from 
freedom into restraint, from warmth into comparative 
frigidity. There is not, however, an absolute rule 
against the intermixture of written with unwritten 
language in the same discourse, either in less or larger 
measure. Some preachers, especially in treating cer- 
tain subjects extemporaneously, have used liberally 
the labor of the pen in certain places, with much ad- 
vantage; the general heterogenousness of the two 
kinds of elocution is nevertheless undeniable.f 

f Several modes of learning to speak well extempore, have been 
recommended by different writers. The best mode, according to 
Lord Brougham, is as follows : " The beginning of the art is to 
acquire the habit of easy speaking. In whatever way this can be 
had, which inclination or accident will generally direct, and may 
be safely allowed to do, it must he had. Differing as I do from all 
other doctors in rhetoric, in this I say learn to speak easily and 
fluently, as well and sensibly as you can, no doubt — but at any 
rate learn to speak. This is to eloquence or good public 
speaking, what being able to talk in a child, is to good 
grammatical speech. It is the requisite foundation, and on it you 
must build. To speak easily, ad libitum, to be able to say what 
you choose, what you have to say — this is the first requisite, to 
acquire which, everything for the present must be sacrificed. 
This is the first step ; the next is the grand one, to convert this 
kind of easy speaking into chaste eloquence. And as to this, 
there is but one rule — to set daily and nightly before you the 
Greek Models." But is this really the only means ? Should 
not the study of English and French and some other models — 
models of the pulpit especially — ^be also recommended ? Diligent 
WORD-STUDY, apart from all models, should, we think, be also in- 
sisted on. One's vocabulary — the number and character of the 
words at his ready command — should be constantly husbanded 



152 THEORY OF PREPARATION, 

15. But to return to the preparation of the matter 
in distinction from the expression of an extemporane- 
ous sermon : This, we repeat, is the same, whether the 
discourse is to be written or not. The only difference 
is in the composition. There is the same analysis of 
the subject ; tlie same invention and disposition of 
materials ; the same array of arguments, divisions, and 
subdivisions ; the same working up of the every thing 
into one compact organism, the parts set together in 
the order of climax, one growing out of another, inter- 
fused, intensified, concentrated, secured against dissi- 
pation and divergence offeree from the one object of 
the work ; in the one case as in the other ; noth- 
ing omitted in the discourse, which is to be extempor- 
ized, except the composition. In neither case, must 
the preparation be permitted to overlook or abridge 
the liberty of the Spirit in the preaching of the dis- 
course ; His way must be left open to modify, or add to 
the matter, if He please to do so ; but whatever the 
Spirit's course may be, the work of preparation on the 
preacher's part ought to be complete ; as much so 
when he omits as when he performs most perfectly the 
labor of composition. *' The sermon must be well and 
solidly prepared," irrespective of possible accessions to 
it from sudden impulses or communications of the 
Spirit. 

16. With different preachers, and with the same 
preacher at different times, there is great difference as 

and enriched. In connection with every means, and, as of more 
importance than all, the pen should be elaborately used. And, 
one thing more we earnestly recommend, namely, the habit of 
using only chaste diction in common conversation. 



FOR PREACHING. 153 

to SPEED AND EAPIDITY IN THE PREPARATION OF THE 

MATTER. Sometimes it is accomplished with a celerity 
almost equal to that of lightning. " There belongs to 
the human mind a peculiar power of discerning at once 
the entire nature of a subject f^ it is given to the 
preacher occasionally, to exercise this wonderful 
power ; with the inception of the purpose to treat his 
subject, the plan, the partes and suh-partes^ and the 
course of thought to the end, are already virtually in 
his possession ; the preparation is completed in a mo- 
ment. But generally its movement is a contrast to 
this electrical s witness ; often it is the extreme oppo- 
site. The first view of the subject is commonly con- 
fused, chaotic, without the slightest perception of 
method or order ; a process of intellectual gestation en- 
sues, including deep, intense, protracted thinking ; 
struggles with obscurity and confusion ; with objec- 
tions, with half-truths and indecisive arguments, with 
erroneous or false prejudgments, with bad or imper- 
fect disposition, with disproportion, disunity, dishar- 
mony, complication, in organizing the material. Such, 
for the most part, is the toil of preparation, the con- 
dition of thoroughness and success in the work. 

lY. There should be no sparing or abatement of 
PAINS in this labor. It is generally the all in all, in 
extemporaneous preaching. The character of the 
utterance and the elocution, the merit of the perform- 
ance, probably depends upon it With few exceptions, 
the whole is done, virtually, when this is done. When 
the discourse is written, the antecedent plan and 

^ Isaac Taylor. 



154 THEORY OF PREPARATION 

arrangement of tlie matter may be clianged and perhaps 
improved in the work of composition ; not so, in the 
delivery of an extemporaneous discourse. The deliv- 
ery now is generally predetermined by tlie character 
of the antecedent labor. It is as the preparation : the 
preparation makes it. Now and then, it maybe other- 
wise by some happy accident ; but the exception con- 
firms the rule, which virtually includes the delivery 
itself in the preparation : when this is finished, the 
preacher by examining it, may anticipate the estima- 
tion of his pulpit performance. If he would therefore 
be sure of preaching well, he should be sure of doing 
well the work of preparation. He ought to revise and 
scrutinize exactly what he has done, whether it was by 
the rapid or the slower movement. His swift prepar- 
ations, especially, should be subjected to criticism. 
They may be less pleasing to him, if he return to them 
after a day or an hour or two : Perhaps their rapidity 
was from want of breadth or depth, or gravity of 
thought : But his most elaborate schemes may be sus- 
ceptible of substantial improvement. After the sever- 
est labor, the best plan sometimes remains to be dis- 
covered. " There are plans which applying the lever 
as deeply as possible, raise the entire mass of the 
subject ; there are others which escape the deepest 
divisions of the matter, and which raise, so to speak, 
only one layer of the subject."* But even if no change 
be made in the work, a revision of it will be useful : 
It will fecundate and inspire the mind more thoroughly 

* Vinet. 



FOM PBEAGHING. 155 

with the subject. It ought never to be foreborne if 
there is time to give it. 

18. The preacher may avail himself of aid in pre- 
paring. Conference with an intelligent friend, com- 
parison of his plans with those of others, examining 
the discourses of others on the subjects he undertakes 
to treat, may, directly or indirectly, assist him. But 
more important than all other means of aiding him- 
self, is this one, namely a quickened consciousness, on 
the one hand, of dependence on the co-operation of 
the Spirit ; and on the other, of relying entirely on 
no other human mind than his own. With these two 
consciousnesses, which generally are inseparable, and 
involve one another, his mind will have the normal 
prerequisite for its freest and best style of activity, 
and for its greatest effectiveness and success. He will 
not assist himself really by any means if he forget or 
intermit his sense of dependence on the Spirit ; he 
certainly will not, by using the method or thoughts 
of others, any otherwise than as he makes tliem his 
own by his own mental rumination and digestion. 
Not more individual is one's own flesh and blood, or 
personality even, than the material which one natu- 
rally or honestly works up in the construction of a 
discourse. It must be his own as veritably as his 
mind is his own. He may use freely whatever he can 
obtain from others, when he has digested it and in- 
wrought it into the life of his own mind ; but other- 
wise he cannot use it without using what does not be- 
long to him, and he will be a plagiarist if he takes to 
himself the credit of originating it, or gives it as from 



156 THEORY OF PREPARATION 

himself* The method which the mind truly uses, is 
one which it forms to itself by a kind of gestatory 
process ; it may be suggested or given by another, 
but it is not mechanically accepted, it is received 
through the mind's free self-activity ; it is from the 
application of thought to the ultimate intention, from 
CONSIDERATION OF THE END. Hcncc all the material 
of the operation ; hence, also, the disposition of the 
material. This it is that determines the number and 
the arrangement of the parts, and the entire method 
of the work. The wHole business of speaking is 
resolvable into reflection on what is to be done, and 
liow to do it ; and the first indicates the second ; and 
both presuppose the free exercise of the speaker's 
individuality. Both will express that individuality. 
Following nature, no two persons do precisely the 
same thing in precisely the same way. The difference 
will appear in substantial as well as in minor par- 
ticulars. Even miraculous inspiration did not hinder 
the apostles from doing each his own work after his 
own method and fashion. 

19. We have nothing more to say of the work of 
preparing the matter of the discourse. But prepara- 
tion TO PREACH includes more than this — the preacher 
has to prepare himself as well as his sermon. And 

* We see in tlie light of this fact how to estimate books of 
" skeletons " proffered as " helps," in the composition of sermons. 
Except as inciting the writer to self-exertion (and generally they 
do only the contrary), they are not helps indeed, unless they do, 
as is tlie case with some of them, the whole business themselves ; 
when, if they are used, they occasion the preacher's falling into 
the snare of plagiarism. 



FOR PREACHING. 157 

this, after all, is the most important part of the pre- 
paration. " It is not so much by what he says, as by 
what HE IS, that the preacher may flatter himself that 
he does not beat the air. Before everything he is con- 
cerned to hold the mystery of the faith in a pure con- 
science. This pure conscience is the true force of 
preaching. A discourse is powerful from the motive 
of him who pronounces it, whatever may be the mode 
in which that motive expresses itself. A discourse is 
so much the better the more it resembles an act of 
contrition, of prayer, of martyrdom. The preacher 
should regard himself as a channel for what ought to 
be conveyed by him into the heart of his hearers."* 
Preaching presupposes a very peculiar habit or temper 
of spirit. Preaching is an action of the soul of the 
highest spiritual excellence, if it be rightly performed, 
but for the right performance of which, no ready-made 
discourse, however good, is the least security. The 
actual labor of the pulpit is as much a spiritual, 
Divine-Human work, as the most spiritual preparation 
for that labor. The co-operation of the Spirit has 
never been more necessary than now. Even if the 
words of the sermon have been prepared by His help, 
and are in themselves spiritual words, they cannot be 
reproduced aright by the voice without the continu- 
ance of the Divine aid. If the Spirit withdraw Him- 
self from the preacher in the reading of the Scrip- 
tures, he cannot read them as he should. The words 
are spiritual, but not his reading of them. The repe- 
tition of words, whether from the Bible or the sermon, 

* Vinet. 



158 THEORY OF PREPARATION 

should be in tlie exercise of spiritual discernment 
" a sense of the excellency of the things of the 
Spirit, and a conviction of the truth and reality of 
them thence arising." There is no action more full 
of spirituality, more animated by spiritual perception 
in its highest degrees, than the just delivery of an 
evangelical sermon. The short-coming, therefore, in 
preparation to preach, however elaborate and com- 
plete, is radical, if the preacher has omitted to pre- 
pare himself. His preaching, after all, will not be 
preaching indeed. He may be very eloquent, the 
matter of his sermon very spiritual, but his preaching 
will not differ essentially from the speaking of a mere 
barrister ; it will be as really of mere human ability 
or accomplishments. The barrister, perhaps, might 
deliver the sermon as well as he ; the action in his 
delivery of it would have the same moral nature ; 
the eloquence would be no other than natural elo- 
quence ; it would be void of holiness, void of spiri- 
tuality, void of the peculiar influence of the Holy 
Spirit. The absence of the spiritual element in pulpit 
elocution makes preaching preacliing no longer. Dis- 
course bearing this name, with, perhaps, the highest 
linguistic and logical excellencies, and even having 
the most sacred verities of tlie Gospel for its matter, 
may be no less ambitious, no less studious of personal 
reputation and popular applause, no more in affinity 
with the inspiration and influences of the Holy Ghost, 
than the oratory of the forum or the platform. 

20. The personal disqualification may include, if 
not a want of modesty or feeling, a want of self- 



FOR PBEACHINQ. 159 

COMMAND IN PRESENCE OF THE ASSEMBLY, a SerioUS 

matter, if one is going to preach without notes. A 
slight discomposure of mind is enough to take away 
his ability to reproduce his discourse, even as a 
breath of wind on the surface of a lucid water will 
deprive it of its capacity of showing the images of the 
trees and otlier objects which are about it. And a 
man of sensibility, who has due respect to the as- 
sembly, and to his own position, is in danger of being 
thus agitated, especially in extempore speaking, how- 
ever well prepared and practised in the art. Even 
Cicero has said of himself, and he told certain emi- 
nent orators to whom he was speaking, that he had 
observed the same thing to be true of them, that " he 
grew pale at the beginning of a speech and felt a 
tremor in every part of his frame." " When a young 
man," he added, " I was so intimidated, that (I speak 
it with the highest sense of gratitude) Quintus Max- 
imus adjourned the court when he perceived me thus 
oppressed and disabled with concern." Heroical 
preachers, who have been many years in the ministry, 
are no strangers to this perturbation. " I am now an 
old man," said Luther, " and have been a long while 
occupied in preaching, but I never ascend the pulpit 
without a tremor."* Practice in preaching, to one 
whom familiarity has not made unfeeling, to one who 
has been growing in the grace which pulpit duty 
requires for its just performance, enhances, rather 
than diminishes, the liability to agitation at the out- 

* Nunc senex et diu concionando versatus sim, sed nusquam 
euggestum conscendo sine tremore. 



160 THEORY OF PREPARATION 

set of the delivery of a sermon. " The more a man 
excels in speaking, he is the more sensible of its 
difiSculty ; lie is nnder the greatest concern for the 
event and to answer the expectation of the public."* 
Let one approach the pulpit with a matured sense 
of the pre-eminent sacredness of the position which 
he is about to occupy, tlie responsibilities attached to 
it, the issues of the work to be done in it, and of his 
own insufficiency for this work, and would it be pos- 
sible for him to remain unmoved without more than 
human support ? We are acquainted with a preacher 
who, after escaping, through Divine mercy, out of a 
state of spiritual decline, was so burdened with emo- 
tion in the pulpit the next Sabbath morning, that he 
could scarcely command himself, or bear his new 
experiences, though he had been fourteen years in the 
ministry. 

In speaking of the high peculiarity proper to true 
feeling and action in the pulpit, the words of St. Cyran 
deserve, we think, the deepest consideration. " Preach- 
ing is a mystery not less awful and terrible than that 
of the eucharist. It appears to me that preaching is 
much more awful ; for it is that by which souls are be- 
gotten and quickened unto God ; whereas by the 
eucharist they are only nourished, or to speak more 
correctly, healed. For my part I had rather say a 
hundred masses than preach once. We are alone at 
the altar, but in the pulpit we preach to a public as- 
sembly, where we ought to fear offending God more 
than elsewhere, unless we have previously labored for a 

* Cicero. 



FOB PREACHING. 161 

long time to mortify our spirit, and that pruriency which 
every one has to know many fine things, which is the 
greatest temptation that remains to us from the sin of 
Adam." Is it not probable that too much of the self- 
possession and familiarity commonly exhibited in 
preaching is to be referred rather to the presence of a 
manuscript, or to an unspiritual self-assurance, than 
to proficiency in pulpit piety and grace ? It is not 
in eitlier of these that the potentiality is seated, 
for spiritual activity in preaching; it lies, exclus- 
ively, in a habit of soul, produced and perpet- 
uated with reference to it, by the anointing of the 
Spirit of God. We read of primitive preachers,"^ that 
they were men habitually full of the Holy Ghost and 
faith ; and from the nature of the business which is 
done in true preaching, it could not but be, that a man 
so subjectively qualified, would have this fullness in 
special vigor and force, when engaged in this business. 
It is hence, and hence alone, that there is a security 
for that holy self-composure, that sublime elevation 
above all regard to self, and the fear of man, which is 
the condition of performing this business aright. 

21. Having analyzed preparation for preaching, so 
far as it is common to both methods, we return to 

WRITING, WHICH MAKES THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

THEM. The difference is not small ; for writing, after 
the best preparation, is a long and painful labor. 
Writing is not a bare transcription on paper of what 
has been mentally prepared. The words of the dis- 
course, as we have remarked, have not been prepared ; 

* John, Peter, Stephen, Paul, Barnaba&, etc. 



162 THEORY OF PREPABATION 

they are produced by the emergency of the mind in 
the operation of writing. Not more in extemporizing 
than in composing, are the verbal creations and con- 
structions, the creations of the moment ; there are not 
ready-made sentences or words for either. The labor 
of the linguistic work in writing, is commonly much 
more difficult than the labor of preparing for it ; not 
only are the forms of language originated now, but 
new ideas and relations are originated also. " Writ- 
ting is still thinking, still inventing, still arranging.""^ 
" To write well is at once to think well, to feel well, 
to render well : it must have, at the same time, mind, 
soul and taste ; style requires the combination and ex- 
cellencies of all the intellectual powers. The intellec- 
tual excellencies which it contains, all the relations of 
which it consists, are so many truths not less useful, 
and perhaps of more value to the human mind, than 
those which form the foundation of the subject. "t 

22. The usefulness of writing depends on its being 
DONE WITH CARE. Writing is useful as a gymnastic of 
the mind, that is to say, when the mind acts as an 
athlete, when its utmost abilities are put forth : writing 
again is useful as contributing to the command of lan- 
guage ; as a means of chastening, purifying, and invig- 
orating style, of improvement in disposition and 
method, of thoroughness in the treatment and exhibi- 
tion of subjects, and, chiefly, as we have said already, 
of proficiency in extemporizing. But the writing 
which subserves these ends, is no other than elaborate 
composition ; the fruit of a struggle after ideal excel- 
* Vinet, t Buffon. 



FOB PREACHING. 163 

lence. We cannot retract what we have said : Better 
be restricted to preparation for preaching extempore, 
than fall into a habit of preparing by unstudious, sup- 
erficial, extemporaneous writing. 

23. But it is to be kept vividly and constantly be- 
fore the mind, in writing for the pulpit, that there is A 

FUNDAMENTAL SPECIALITY IN THIS KIND OF COMPOSITION. 

It approaches as nearly as possible to the style of ex- 
temporaneous speaking. In its ideal, preaching is, as 
we have before said, extemporaneous as to its lan- 
guage ; the extemporaneous sermon, therefore, abstract- 
ing its faults, is the model as to the style and diction 
of one which is to be written ; it gives command in the 
verbal construction of the sermon. The pen, in com- 
position, should as much as possible do the very office 
of the tongue in its unpremeditated utterances. It 
should intend the words it writes, not for the eye, but 
the ear. The preacher should imagine the assembly 
he is to address to be present with him where he is 
writing, and make his silent sentences and words as a 
tongue or a living voice wherewith he speaks to it. 
He must write in a style, analogous, not to a miniature, 
but to the bold representations of scene-painting. He 
has lost the idea of preaching if he think it realizable 
in a composition suited peculiarly to the press. The 
composition of a sermon should, if possible, be made 
perfect in its kind; but its kind is its own, and unchange- 
able. The style of the sermon, like its matter and its 
purpose, is individual and unique. 

24. But, moreover, and infinitely more important : 
Writing for the pulpit should, no less than the ante- 



164 THEORY OF PBEPABATION 

cedent preparation for writing, be kept under the 

COMMAND AND CONTROL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. Not 

less needful now is the Spirit's co-operation : if possi- 
ble it is more needful. There is special danger of 
being unspiritual in this part of the labor : the danger 
of the undue pursuit of ornament ; of ambitious ora- 
tory ; of going into a search for the enticing words of 
man's wisdom ; of depending too much on the sermons 
or plans of others ; of being too speculative and ab- 
struse, or, on the other hand, vulgar and commonplace ; 
of being only half or almost true : in a word, of ignor- 
ing the Spirit's part in preaching, and, consequently, 
of abating the necessity and exercise of prayer. In 
writing, much more than in the preliminary labor, and 
than in extemporizing, the mind busies itself about the 
externalities, the outward investments of the matter ; 
in the other operation, it is engrossed with the matter 
alone ; or if it apply itself at all to the clothing of its 
thoughts, it does so for the most part, in an embryotic 
manner ; there is no distinct construction, or discern- 
ment of forms of language. The mind certainly can and 
often does think in these forms, but if it never thinks 
without them, they are often undistinguishable even in 
its own consciousness. It is at least certain, that 
whereas in writing, the expression is very apt to be 
the principal thing, it is comparatively as nothing in 
the direct activity of the extempore speaker. And 
this shows the specially high place which prayer 
should have in writing sermons : it is, if possible, more 
important now than in preparing the matter. The 
expression of a written, no less than a spoken sermon, 



FOR PREAcnma. les 

ought to be spiritual, but where it is the chief object 
of attention, there is special danger that it will not 
be ; it will be from special spirituality in the writer of 
the sermon if the structure and tissue of it be not un- 
spiritual ; in wisdom of words, rather than in demon- 
stration of the Spirit and of power. 

25. The work of composition generally goes on 
better when, without anxious attention to diction, the 

PEN OF THE WRITER MOVES SWIFTLY, UNDER THE IM- 
PULSE OF STRONG AND VIVID CONCEPTIONS OF THE SUB- 
JECT. Direct study of expression at the time of writing 
is seldom the best method of success in the style of a 
composition. Quintilian tells us, that the choicest 
expressions are, for the most part, adherent to things, 
and are seen in their own light ; while we search after 
them as if they were hiding and stealing themselves 
away from us. Still we know that one may have vigorous 
conceptions without ability to express them well ; there 
are very good thinkers who are not good writers. 
Again, it is a matter of experience, that after the best 
prepar^ation of the matter one can make, he has some- 
times to depend on the labor of expression at the 
moment of performing it, to give him the precise con- 
ceptions he needs in order to write well. It is so 
sometimes in speaking extempore ; it is oftener so in 
writing. The movement of the tongue in the former, 
and much more of the pen in the latter, is deliberate 
and interrupted ; the expression being studied as a 
means of more distinctness of thought. But, generally, 
good writers and speakers give their direct attention 
to thought first and chiefly : leaving expression to 



166 THEORY OF PREPARATION 

come at the nisus, and, as it were, the call of thought. 
The opposite order, the study of expression chiefly, 
produces a style not without ideas altogether, but 
" with ideas of tinsel, ideas without roots and without 
power; or, if some thought is mixed with it, it is ex- 
ternal to the subject, sustained by nothing, and unsus- 
tained."^ A vigorous style is from strong and vigor- 
ous thinking, directed to the matter, not to the diction. 
'' A true style is not the mask but the physiognomy of 
thought ; it comes from thought, as complexion 
comes from the blood, as the flower springs from 
the sap." This tells tells us why it is that very 
masculine writing is sometimes slow, very slow, per- 
haps, in its progress. It nevertheless remains a fact, 
that one ordinarily writes best, especially if he is 
occupied on a sermon, which should always have a 
popular, speaking style, when inspired and stimula- 
ted by clear views of his subject ; his pen is nimble 
and brisk, and yet perhaps much too slow for the 
movement of his mind.f 

But though with the generality of preachers, the 
rule in writing a sermon should be to despatch it, 
currente calam.0, yet they should not assume that be- 
cause they have followed the best method, and prob- 
ably produced a better composition than they could 
have otherwise done, they should not subject it to A 
CRITICAL REVISION OF THE LANGUAGE, now that it is Sub- 
stantially finished according to the true rule. Verbal 
criticism has been biding its time ; after a little rest 

* Vinet. 

f Dr. Alexander's chief trouble in writing was tlie time requir- 
ed in the chirography. 



FOR PREACHING. 167 

from the labor of composition, this second labor may be 
instituted, not only without peril, but probably witli 
much advantage, to the fruit of the first. The first 
words, and the first verbal constructions are not 
always the best, even when the writer's mind is preg- 
nant and aglow with clear and vigorous thought ; 
there may be epithets too many or too few, or not well 
selected ; sentences involved ; redundant phrases ; 
statements exaggerated or unprecise, or weak through 
too much strength ; or without verity to thought. If 
the criticism keeps itself under the law which every 
thing in a sermon should obey — the law which makes 
subservience to the end the critic of every sentence 
and word — it can hardly be too severe. If it do not 
make too large a demand on time, it should not rest 
until it has done its work as exactly and completely 
as possible. Not only the improvement of the discourse, 
but the preacher's general improvement in the use of 
the language, is the fruit of fidelity in this second la- 
bor of composition. It has been of high value with 
the best thinkers and writers. John Foster, speaking 
of one of his own discourses, says : " I dare say I could 
point out scores of sentences, each one of which has 
cost me several hours of the utmost exertion of my 
mind to put it in the state in which it now stands, 
after putting it in several other forms, to each one 
of which I saw some precise objection, which I could 
at the time have very distinctly assigned." Robert 
Hall (witness what his biographer says of his toil in 
preparing his sermons for the press^) was scarcely be- 
» « Writing, improving, rejecting tlie improvement ; seeking 



168 THEORY OF PREPARATION 

hind his eminent contemporary in this exquisite care 
for perfect expression. 

26. But to return to the first operation : If the 
theory of writing well forbids the study of words, as 
the first thing, mucli more does it forbid the labor of 
PATCH-WORK in the composition."^ Those who write 
detached passages at different times never combine 
them, we are told,t without forced transitions ; and 
if they have trouble with passages of their own writ- 
ing they will, doubtless, have more in working up 
excerpts from scrap-books, or memory, gathered in 
reading. The construction of discourse is accretive, 
not mechanical ; never by mere juxtaposition or acces- 
sion. It is the development of a living germ, an up- 
spring and a growth from a living seed of truth. It 
takes nothing into itself from without which it can- 
not assimilate ; it avoids heterogeneous, immiscible 
matter, as it were by instinct, as the animal in its 
pasture avoids the herbage which does not suit its 
hunger. The advance of a discourse to completion, 
and especially a sermon, a Divine-Human discourse, is 
from within outward ; what comes into it from with- 
out does so by elective afiinity, and coalesces with its 
life as it enters, so that this, with the rest, works as 
an inward living force. Come whence or how it may, 

another ; rejecting it ; recasting whole sentences and pages ; often 
recurring precisely to the original phraseology ; and still oftencr 
repenting, when it was too late, that he had not done so." — Dr. 
Gregory's Memoirs. 

* " Purpurens, late qui splendeat, unus et alter 
Assuitur paunus." 
f Buffon. 



FOB PBEACHmO. 169 

it will receive it into itself, if it will at once mix and 
become consubstantial with its own life ; but it can 
accept of nothing which is not closely akin and ger- 
mane to itself, however beautiful or sublime. 

27. It is inexpedient to attempt a sermon which is 
to be written for an urgent occasion, on a theme not 

ALREADY FAMILIAR TO THE PREACHER. His knowl- 
edge of it sliould be adequate before he begins the 
work. The delay required by having to gain new 
knowledge, is incompatible with the intense and rapid 
thinking which is the ordinary condition of life and 
energy in the composition, and in the present case, 
probably, a stern necessity. He has no time to give 
to " reading up," or the acquisition of knowledge. 
He should have a sufficiency of knowledge when he 
begins. If more come to him as he proceeds, it 
should come spontaneously, or from the principle of 
association or suggestion, not by any direct effort to 
obtain it. By turning aside to look into commentaries 
or books of sermons, or even by stopping to ask infor- 
mation of a friend who is near, he is in danger of 
losing interest in his work and breaking the vital 
force and connection of his thought. He cannot do two 
things at once ; he has time for but one ; and if he 
had more time, the law of the main labor he is en- 
gaged in would forbid the appropriation of it to aught 
else until that labor is finished. 

28. And one thing more as to the selection of a 
favorable topic. The highest success in writing re- 
quires a QUICKENED INTEREST IN THE SUBJECT AS WELL 
AS SUFFICIENT KNOWLEDGE OF IT. EloqUCnCC is not 

8 



170 THEORY OF PBEPABATION 

from knowledge or thinking merely, but from sympa- 
thy, from lively emotion, from light within, which 
burns as it shines. Eloquence is the fruit of an en- 
gagement of the powers and forces of the mind, in a 
business operation, an affair of action, directed to an 
immediate object. Interest is its law, its spring, its 
life ; other things being equal, the livelier the interest, 
the higher the strain of eloquence. The preacher 
should, as much as possible, be impassionated by the 
subject, should put himself wholly into it, so as to be 
able to give himself to his hearers in and with his 
discourse. This is the condition of the highest suc- 
cess in writing for the pulpit ; and it shows, what 
Pastoral Theology teaches as one of its great axioms, 

the CLOSE ASSOCIATION OF EXCELLENCE IN THE PREA- 
CHING OF A PASTOR WITH FIDELITY IN THE CARE OP 

SOULS. The best parish preacher is not one so en- 
grossed in preparing his sermons that he can earnestly 
do little else ; but one, on the contrary, so occupied 
in the work of pastoral oversight that his abounding 
in that work, his intimate acquaintance with the state 
of his flock thence resulting, gives him the word of 
command in the selection of his topics for preaching, 
and stimulates and guides him in writing his dis- 
courses. This is, in truth, the pastor's chief labor ; 
that which, with a conscientious pastor, holds the 
highest place. " I confess I would rather hear the 
care of souls objected against preaching, than preach- 
ino- af]:ainst the care of souls. I would rather one 
should say to me, my sick, my poor, my scattered 
sheep require me, and forbid me to give my preaching 



FOR P BEACHING. iVl 

all the attention which is desirable."* But there is 
no clashing between the two works : they aid, use, 
one another. Preaching serves itself greatly of pa- 
rochial assiduity. Next to prayer and the co-opera- 
tion of the Holy Spirit, the most effective assistance 
in writing for the pulpit is afforded by acquaintance 
and sympathy with the state of families and individ- 
uals in the parish. In this, as in everything, duty is 
one in effect with expediency and success. The secret 
of life, alacrity, excellence, happiness, in preaching is 
self-devotedness, earnestness, and particularity of con- 
cern in the pastoral care. The difference between a 
ministry of the word which springs from this concern 
and fulfills its impulses, and one which may be desig- 
nated a ministry at large, is often as the difference 
between liberty and servitude, delight and drudgery, 
strength and weakness, success and failure. f 

29. We here finish our outline of this important 
subject, feeling that, even as an outline, it is very, very 
incomplete, and hoping that if what we have said shall 
have no other good result, it may induce some one 
better furnished for the work to supply its defects, 
correct its faults, and extend it into a book. We feel 
that our subject deserves to be treated at large ; it 
has not been so treated, so far as we know. Yinet 

' * Vinet. Past. Theol. 

f " I acknowledge that there are two things whereby I regulate 
my work in the whole course of my ministry : To impart those 
truths of wliose power I have Jiad, in some measure, a real experi- 
ence ; and to press those duties which present occasions, tempta- 
tions and other circumstances, do render necessary to he attended 
to in a peculiar manner" — Dr. Owen. 



172 THEORY OF PREPABATIOJSf. 

seems to have included it in the plan of liis great 
work on Homiletics ; * but it has no place in that 
work ; and we should rejoice greatly to know that a 
vigorous thinker, with a strong and full apprehension 
of the New Testament idea of preaching, with ade- 
quate learning and culture, and in special communion 
with the Holy Spirit, has given himself to the labor 
of preparing for the press a complete treatise on it. 
In the plan of our Lord for recovering the world to 
Himself, the pulpit remains ascendant over all other 
means ; and let means be multiplied or varied as they 
may, it will so remain ; and if it abdicate its place, 
or become essentially different from what it was at 
first, other means, however diligently used, will be- 
come as waters which have no fountain, or as bitter 
waters flowing from a fountain which has been 
poisoned. Next to the outpouring of the Spirit upon 
her general membership, the Church has no interest 
so momentous as the ministry of the Word. Amid 
the radical errors and misbeliefs of the times, are 
there no indications that the appearance of such a 
book as we have expressed a desire to see, would be 
seasonable ? 

* See page 261. 



VIII. 

DELIVERY m PREACHING. 



1. An intelligent observer of the common preaching 
of the times, who compares it with the New Testa- 
ment idea of preaching, or attempts to resolve it 
into its proper principles as claiming to be a species 
of public eloquence, cannot but see that in several 
radical respects, it needs to be reformed. He must 
remark in it as quite ordinary and prominent features, 
violations of oratorical unity ; want of the freeness, 
directness and pungency of appeal which individuate 
the oratorical style ; want of the impassionate, the 
unction, and the agonistic force by which the oratory 
of the pulpit, more than any other, should be charac- 
terized. But with a just estimation of its share of im- 
portance in preaching, must he not, above all, note and 
lament an imperative demand for reformation in the 
particular which forms the subject of this article ? 
Long ago, the pulpit was reproached very sharply for 
a very bad manner of delivery. Said a celebrated ec- 
clesiastic to a celebrated actor of the former century : 
'= How js it that you who deal in nothing but fiction 

(173) 



174 DELIVERY IN PREACHmG. 

can so affect your audience as to throw them into 
tears, while we who deliver the most awful truths can 
scarcely produce any effect whatever ? " " Here," re- 
plied the actor, " lies the secret : you deliver your 
truths as if they were fictions ; hut we deliver our fictions 
as if they luere truths^ There has been, it would seem, 
no material change for the better. It has been recent- 
ly remarked,"^ that action in speaking generally is so 
little approved or designedly employed, that it is 
hardly any part of the orator's art. In reference to 
preaching, the fact has been spoken of thus : " Why 
are we natural everywhere but in the pulpit ? Why this 
holoplexia on sacred occasions alone ? Why call in 
the aid of paralysis to piety ? Is it a rule of oratory 
to handle the most sublime truths in the driest man- 
ner ? Is sin to be taken from men, as Eve was from 
Adam, by casting them into a deep slumber ?"t 

2. This is not a matter of small moment. If 
preaching be indeed a kind of eloquence, and if its 
efficacy depend at all on its being true to its princi- 
ples as such, nothing relating to the practice of it is 
weightier. Delivery comprehends all the modes of 
expression in public speaking. " It is," says Cicero, 
very admirably, " the eloquence of the body ; and im- 
plies the proper management of the voice and gesture.'' 
According to the masters of the art and practice of 
speaking, it is the chief thing in eloquence. " What 
we have composed," says Quintilian, " is not of so much 
consequence as how it is delivered ; because every one 
is affected in proportion as he is made to hear, 

* By Arclibishop Wliately, f Sidney Smitli. 



DELIVERY m PREACHING. 175 

There is no proof so strong but it will lose its force 
unless it is aided by an emphatic tone in the speaker ; 
and all passions must become languid unless spirited- 
up by the voice and countenance and attitude of the 
body."' In like manner, Cicero gives more import- 
ance to delivery, than, apart from it, to what is deliv- 
ered. " Without a good delivery, the best speaker 
can have no name, and with it, a middling one can 
obtain the highest." Demosthenes goes further : 
" Being asked what was the greatest excellency in or- 
atory, he not only gave the preference to delivery, but 
assigned to it the second and the third place ; where- 
by it appeared that he judged it not so much the 
principal, as the only excellency." His own practice 
accorded, it would seem, with his judgment. " After 
^Eschines had lost a cause, he retired in disgrace 
from Athens to Ehodes, where, at the request of tlie 
Rhodians, he read to them that fine oration which 
Demosthenes had pronounced against Ctesiphon, which 
he did with a charming voice. When everybody was 
expressing their applause : ' How would you have ap- 
plauded,' says he, ' if you had heard the author him- 
self deliver it T Whereby it appears what a vast 
influence action had, since the change of the actor 
could make the same speech appear in quite a different 
light."'^ Let us not wonder at this estimation of this 
part of oratory. Who that has been much employed 
in speaking has not often found a good discourse 
spoiled, and a poor one made quite a success, by the 
manner of pronouncing it ? The preaching of White- 

* Cicero de Oratore. 



176 DELIVERY IN PREACHING. 

field, apart from his delivery, was in no respect 
extraordinary ; including his delivery, it has never 
been equalled. "To ignorant and semi- barbarous 
men," said John Foster, " even common truths, in 
Whitefield's preaching, seemed to strike on them in 
fire and light." 

8. In the tones op the voice alone there are 
elements of eloquence of inconceivable force. 
The human voice and the human mind, both inscrut- 
able marvels of divine handiwork, were made for one 
another. " The voice, together with the look and the 
whole frame, is responsive to the passions of the mind, 
as the strings of a musical instrument are to the fin- 
gers which touch them. For as a musical instrument 
has its difi'erentkeys, so every voice is sharp, full, slow, 
loud or low : and then each of these keys has different 
degrees which beget other strains, such as the smooth 
and the sharp, the contracted and the lengthened, the 
continued and the interrupted, the tender, the shrill 
and the swelling."^' 

4. But the voice, with its wonderful modulations, is 
unmeasurably aided by the other part of the elo- 
quence OF THE BODY. " No man expresses warm and. 
animated feelings with his mouth alone, but with his 
whole body. He articulates with every limb and joint, 
and talks from head to foot with a thousand voices."t 
And how does the accession of fitting gesture to vocal 
expression emphasize and enhance the latter ? In 
Paul's address to Agrippa, what vivid, overcoming elo- 
quence was added to his vocal utterance, by his dis- 

* Cicero. f Sidney Smith. 



DELIVERY IN PBEAGHING. 1^7 

playing his chains? "Except these bonds." How 
did Antony intensify the words of his oration over 
the dead body of Caesar, by uncovering it before the 
eyes of the people, and counting over its wounds one 
by one ? To the peroration of Burke's speech, in the 
impeachment of Hastings, what an overwhelming force 
of eloquence was given, when, with streaming eyes 
and with a suffused countenance, he raised his hands 
with the documents in them as a testimony to Heaven 
of the guilt of the person charged ? '^ What had 
Whitefield's apostrophe " to the attendant angel" been, 
abstracting from it his supjplosio jpedis^ and his lifting 
up his eyes with gushing tears, compared to what it 
was by virtue of this accompanying gesticulation? 
Take from the celebrated conclusion of Webster's 
argument before the Supreme Court, in the case of 
Darmouth College, the quivering of the lips, the trem- 
bling of the firm cheeks, the choked voice, the eyes 
overfull of tears, of the great Advocate, and that con- 
clusion would never have been celebrated or remem- 
bered, t 

* "Never was eloquence more triumphant. His audience could 
endure the agony no longer. Mrs. Siddons confessed that all the 
terror and pity she had ever witnessed on the stage, sunk into 
insignificance before the scene she had just witnessed. Mrs. 
Sheridan fainted ; and the stern Lord Chancellor, Thurlow, who 
had always in the most headstrong way insisted on Hastings' in 
nocence, was observed for once in his life to shed a tear." 

f " The court-room during these two or three minutes, presented 
an extraordinary spectacle. Chief Justice Marshall bent over as 
if to catch the slightest whisper ; Mr. Justice Washington, at his 
side, leaning over with an eager troubled look ; and the remain- 
der of the court, at the two extremities, pressing as it were to a 
single point, while the audience were wrapping themselves round 



178 DELIVERY IN PBEAGRINQ. 

5. Delivery holds the same place in Preaching, 

THAT IT HAS IN NATURAL ELOQUENCE. The human ill 

it is not less complete or normal from its subordina- 
tion to the Divine. The supernatural does but tend 
to and require perfection in the natural. If therefore 
delivery is the chief thing in eloquence as such, it is 
the chief thing in preaching. There are congruities, 
proprieties of delivery, peculiar to preaching 5 but 
they are not in any disagreement with nature ; they 
are, in kind, only such accommodations to occasions 
and circumstances, as nature requires in different in- 
stances and moments of secular oratory. They are 
but requirements of nature in a peculiar sphere. No 
eloquence applies more completely and naturally the 
principles of oratorical art, than the genuine elo- 
quence of the pulpit. Delivery here also, then, has the 
supremacy. 

6. There is therefore no justification of the com- 
mon disparagement of delivery in preaching ; and no 
apology for it. It implies a violation of order beyond 
a mere violation of nature, a violation of it, also in 
the sphere of the supernatural — a counteraction of order 
in a work in ivhich the chief part belongs to the Holy 
Spirit: a counteraction of the Spirits influence and 
agency in it. The part which the Spirit has in it, im- 
poses, as its corollary, an obligation on the preacher, 

in closer folds beneath tlie bencli, to catch each look and every 
movement of the speaker's face. If a painter could give us the 
scene on canvass — their forms and countenances, and Daniel Web- 
ster as he then stood in the midst — it would be one of the most 
touching pictures in the history of eloquence." — Prof. Goodnch 
to Mr. CJwate. 



DELIVERY m PREACnmG. 179 

to give to delivery his principal regard. Being first 
in itself, it is first in the regard of the Spirit, who 
cannot but estimate things as they are. If the 
preacher puts it last, or aught else above it, he is 
thereiii at variance with the Holy Spirit, and iai pairs 
if he does not entirely thwart His operation. By the 
inversion of order for which he makes himself respon- 
sible, he cannot but grieve, if he does not altogether 
quench the Spirit of God. And he will be likely to 
gain little by misapplying to something else attention 
which is due to delivery. He will not compose as 
well, he will not make as good a sermon in any re- 
spect, as he would if, in making it, he concurred with 
the Holy Spirit in his estimation of delivery. Not 
having been made with just reference to good delivery, 
it will doubtless be little suitable to it ; perhaps in- 
compatible with it ; that is to say, as an instrument 
of oratory, it will be at fault, if not directly opposite 
to what it should be, in respect to the exigency of 
eloquence in its chief element. Underrating delivery, 
therefore, cannot but be inexpedient, in the whole 
business of preaching. It is a capital mistake and its 
fruits are after its kind. It is the bane of pulpit elo- 
quence. 

7. Proceeding now with our main design, which is 
to present as far as we can in a few brief remarks, 
the theory of delivery in preaching, we first of all 
premise, as its chief principle, that even more if pos- 
sible THAN IN MAKING THE SERMON, THE BUSINESS OF 
DELIVERING IT, IS SPIRITUAL ; CONSISTING IN THE HIGH- 
EST ACTIVITIES OF SPIRITUAL LIFE. Ciccro makcs 



180 DELIVERY IN PREACHING. 

action in speaking radically different from that of the 
stage : '' Orators/' he says, '' are the actors of truth ; 
players but its mimicsr Infinitely greater is the 
difference between action in preaching and in other 
oratory ; since the distance is infinite, between nature 
and spirit." Just action in speaking, therefore, quite 
as much as the discourse itself, is of Divine-Human 
agency. It is impossible to the preacher, except as 
he is moved and actuated thereto and therein, by the 
Spirit of God. It is infinitely beyond his ability on 
two accounts : in the first place, he cannot have the 
kind of knowledge, the spiritual light and sense neces- 
sary to it ; and secondly, having this knowledge, he 
still needs the co-operation of the Spirit, in order to 
express it appropriately in delivery — the eloquence of 
the body. As to the former, the continued agency of 
the Spirit is indispensable because spiritual know- 
ledge, unlike the other kind, cannot, from its nature, 
be retained, or recalled, apart from the unintermitted 
working of the Holy Ghost in the soul. The preacher 
may have had the Divine aid in making his sermon ; 
the sermon, both as to its matter and words may be 
a spiritual one ; its delivery nevertheless -will not be 
spiritual, if spiritual knowledge or discernment be 
required in it ; only the incessant operation of the 
Spirit within him, can fulfill this condition.f '' I fear," 
says Pascal, with admirable judgment, " that you do 
not sufficiently distinguish, between the things you 

* The infinite distance between body and mind, is a figure of 
the infinitely more infinite distance between mind and love," — 
the fruit of the Spirit. — Pascal. f In a letter to his sister. 



DELIVERY IN PREACHING. 181 

speak of (spiritual things) and those of which the 
world speaks ; since it is beyond doubt sufficient to 
have once learned these latter things, in order to re- 
tain them, so as not to require to be taught them 
again ; whereas, it is not sufficient to have once 
learned those of the other kind, and to have compre- 
hended them in a good way, that is to say, by the in- 
ternal operation of God, in order to preserve a like 
knowledge of them, though we may well retain the 
recollection of them. There is no reason why we 
should not be able to remeinber them, or why we should 
not retain in our memory, an epistle of St. Paul as 
easily as a book of Virgil. But the knowledge which 
we acquire in this way, as well as the continuation of 
it, is but an effect of memory ; whereas in order that 
those who are of heaven may understand this secret 
and strange language, it is needful that the same 
grace which alone can give the first understanding of 
it should continue it, and render it always jyresent, hy 
graving it incessantly in the hearts of the faithful, so 
as to keep it always alive. As in the blessed, God is 
continually renewing their beatitude which is an 
effect and consequence of grace ; as also the church 
holds, that the Father continually produces the Son, 
and maintains the eternity of His being, by an effusion 
of His own substance, which is without interruption 
as well as without end." But in a spiritual delivery, 
the continued influence of the Spirit, is on another 
account required ; spiritual knowledge, its indispen- 
sable condition is not sufficient for it of itself. It 
cannot express itself in the appropriate action, with- 



182 DELIVERY IN PREACHmO. 

out being aided therein by the Spirit : it is not pro- 
vided for by knowledge alone. Action, which is more 
than knowledge, needs aid for itself. In elocutionary 
action, as well as in thinking and writing, the 
preacher, however qualified by self culture, can attain 
to no degree of spirituality, by merely natural efi*ort. 
If the activity of a preacher in speaking, the elo- 
quence of the body, be indeed spiritual, it is doubtless 
a higher exercise of the spiritual life, than either of 
its other exercises in the business of preaching. It 
must needs be so, if it be answerable, in all respects, 
to the unique and mysterious exigencies of such a 
work, as delivering appropriately the inspired word 
of God as a vehicle and representative of the Holy 
Spirit. Apart from a very special operation of the 
Spirit himself, who is sufiicient for the just perform- 
ance of this work ? — spiritual things, expressing them- 
selves fitly, in spiritual modulations of the voice, spir- 
itual looks, spiritual attitudes — the supernatural ex- 
erting itself proportionately in and through these 
bodily signs of thought and feeling — think of one's 
having in himself, an independent sufficiency for this ! 
The apostles, with all their gifts for other uses, had it 
not, nay, even our Lord's spirituality of mind and 
knowledge, added to the perfectly natural use of the 
human powers did not qualify Him adequately, for the 
business of dispensing the word, independently of the 
continued co-agency of the Spirit in this specific busi- 
ness ; even He delivered His discourses, under the 
anointing and in the power of the Spirit of God.* 
* Luke iv. 18, cf. 21, iv. 14. 



DELIVERY IN PEE ACHING. 183 

After His resurrection, it was still, through the Holy 
Ghost, that He gave commandment to the apostles 
whom He liad chosen.^* 

8. It need hardly be added, that in all prelim- 
inary WORK WITH REFERENCE TO DELIVERY, THE 
PREACHER MUST ABIDE IN COMMUNION WITH THE 

Holy Spirit. He is not sufficient, of himself, for 
the least of the exercises of self-culture prerequisite 
to just pulpit action. The teachers of elocution, with 
their utmost assiduities, cannot make him independent 
of the Spirit's aid in practising aright the rules of 
art, relative to delivery in preaching, or in studying 
aright the philosophy of voice and gesture. They 
cannot instruct him, in what he chiefly needs to know 
and do, in order to act well his part in pronouncing 
his discourses. No appliances, whether simply natu- 
ral or artistic, can effect anything to tins end of 
themselves ; they may suffice for the orators of the 
world ; they come infinitely short of meeting the 
necessities of preachers. As far as preparatory prac- 
tice for pulpit delivery proceeds, on the contrary sup- 
position its failure is inevitable. It is so of necessity ; 
were it otherwise, it might become so by real, if not 
conscious visitations of Divine displeasure. It is an 
offence, a glaring disrespect to the Holy Spirit whose 
proffered aid it declines. Let not the ministers of 
the Word forget for a moment the most intimate and 
sacred relations — relations never for a moment sus- 
pended — between the work of their office and the 
high prerogatives of the Holy Spirit in the economy 
of the Gospel. 

•^ Acts i. 2. 



184 DELIVERY IN P BEACHING. 

9. In regard to particular points of attention, 

THE DETAILS OF APPLICATION IN CULTIVATING DELIV- 
ERY, there is no substantial difference between preach- 
ing and other kinds of public eloquence. Preachers 
cannot be too well acquainted with the tlieory of 
elocution ; cannot know too well the principles of 
emphasis, the science of the passions, and their inter- 
relations with each other ; how they naturally ex- 
press themselves in the tones of the voice, the looks, 
attitudes, movements of the body, etc.* The spiritu- 
ality of pulpit action, and the part in it belonging 
to the Holy Ghost, interfere in no degree with the 
highest culture in reference to it. On the contrary, 
they favor and promote it. It is one of the proper 
designs of the Spirit's influence to secure attention to 
it as far as possible. It is among the ends to which 
He lends His aid ; and it is not to be doubted that the 
general neglect so much to be deplored, into which 
delivery in preaching has fallen, is to be ascribed, in 
great measure, to want of pains-taking with regard to 
it arising from being out of the Spirit's counsel in this 
matter. It is not of Him that preachers have been 
inclined to neglect the scientific study of elocution. 
The labor which this study requires is, doubtless, the 
explanation of its being neglected. The labor un- 
questionably, is a severe one ; but had the Holy 
Spirit been obeyed, it would have been accepted as 
a pleasure.f 

* See Cicero, de Oratore, lib. iii. c. 56-61. 

f Labor ipse voluptas — when performed in tbe strength of the 
Spirit. 



DELIVERY IN PBEACHINO. 185 

10. But supposing tliat no preliminary pains have 
been omitted, and that nothing remains but delivery 

itself, WHAT METHOD SHOULD BE FOLLOWED IN THIS 

PAET OF PREACHING ? Thc actual mcthods are three : 
Reading. Reciting and Extemporising. Reserving the 
last for the moment, which of the first two should 
be preferred? Both reproduce a written discourse, 
which does it in the better manner ? Taking them in 
their best form. Reciting, doubtless, has the advantage. 
In general, reciting is injured by requiring an effort 
of memory in order to recall the words of the dis- 
course. But there is a kind of recitation which has 
no such inconvenience ; the reciter, in this case, has 
no more concern about his words or linguistic forms 
than the extemporizer ; he uses the very expressions 
he has written ; but he does this from his perfect pos- 
session of his subject, not from a consciously distinct 
exercise of recollection. He has his composition so 
exactly and thoroughly hy hearty that to reproduce it 
he has but to open his mouth ; his utterance of it is 
as spontaneous as his breathing. We speak what to 
us is a mystery, but we are acquainted with an eminent 
person, in whom, according to his own assertion to 
us, it is actualized. His language in speaking, though, 
elaborately written, is as spontaneous as it would be 
if he were extemporizing. So intimately identified 
and united are his thought and the form of it in his 
manuscript, that it would require an effort to separate 
them. Such a way of reciting as this, is, undoubtedly, 
preferable to the best way of reading. But it is very 
uncommon ; except to a few pi'ivileged geniuses, it is 



186 DELIVERY IN PREACHING. 

extremely difficult if not impossible. To almost every 
one who practices it, reciting is a labor of recollec- 
tion, requiring even for an imperfect performance of 
it, an anxious mental application. This fact is a very 
grave objection to this method being generally ad- 
opted. For by how much the mind is occupied in 
recalling forms of expression, by so much is it disabled 
for the work itself of delivery. This is no part of 
the business ; it is another business ; the common 
reciter attempts two things at once. He puts himself 
to an impracticable task ; his delivery is bad at best ; 
and, what is another serious disadvantage, lie is apt 
to betray a solicitude, lest the words of his manuscript 
escape him ; and the hearers perceiving his embarrass- 
ment, are hindered from attending to what he says, 
by sympathetic trouble, fearing that his memory may 
fail him. Generally, therefore, reciting is much in- 
ferior to reading, at least to the best way of reading. 
It is inferior, we think, to reading as commonly prac- 
ticed. Bad as this is, there is no interference in it 
from a distinct exercise of thought about another mat- 
ter, and whether interested by it or not, the hearers 
are at ease. 

11. Delivery by reading may rise to high 
EXCELLENCE. — In this method one may be exclusively 
occupied by the sense ; the words are before his eye ; 
but he does not think of them ; he is not conscious 
of seeing them ; the subject with reference to its pur- 
pose wholly engrosses him ; he has no concern except 
through reading, to possess his hearers of it, and com- 
pel them to yield to its force. Into his delivery, such 



DELIVERY IN PREACHING. 187 

as it is, be throws himself entirely ; his action may be 
very defective ; his gestures, especially, may be awk- 
ward or ungraceful ; but his hearers are so interested 
with what he says, that they see nothing amiss. In- 
finitely different is reading like this from ordinary 
reading, which simply reports what is written on the 
page. This reading does more than inform ; it is full 
of living fire ; it conveys the preacher's soul, all 
aglow with the inspiration of his subject, and the pur- 
pose for which he treats it. Such was the method 
of Chalmers, the most eloquent preacher of his age. 
He read, but what was his reading as an instrument 
of oratory ! Edwards, too, was a reader — a quiet 
reader — but in what demonstration of the Spirit and 
power was the preaching of that great man of God ! 
12. But neither in Reciting nor in Reading does 
THE IDEAL OF DELIVERY RESIDE. As to reading, the 
best of these methods, a very high authority would 
hardly admit it into a comparison with that which 
we named last. " Pleadings which are read," says 
Pliny,* " lose all their force and warmth and well 
nigh their very name, as being tilings which the ges- 
tures of the speaker, his bold advances, even his 
changes of position and the activity of his body, in 
harmony with all the emotions of the mind, are wont 
at once to enforce and kindle. But the eyes and 
liands of one who reads, which are the main auxiliaries 
of delivery, are fettered, so that it is no wonder the 
attention of the auditors flags, since it is sustained 
by no charm, and awakened by no excitement from 

* Epist. IV : lib. ii. 



188 DELIVERY IK PREACUmO. 

without." Edwards, also, notwithstaiidiug his con- 
trary practice, which, in the latter part of his life, 
he thought it had been well had he never followed, 
pronounced delivery without notes the most natural 
way, and that which had the greatest tendency, on the 
whole, to answer the end of preaching. It appeared 
evident to him, to have been the manner of the apostles 
and primitive ministers of the Gospel.^ A thousand 
examples demonstrate the incomparable superiority of 
this manner. By the side of that of Whitefield, what 
is the best possible way of reading ! In his looks ; 
his tears ; the flashes, glances, suffusion of his eyes ; 
in his attitudes and changes of position ; in the sud- 
den effects of reaction on himself from observed im- 
pressions on the hearers, what matchless eloquence — 
utterly impossible in any other than extemporaneous 
speaking ! Admitting that it was spiritual as well 
as natural, as it doubtless may have been and was in 
a high degree, the conclusion is intuitive, that delivery 
can rise into its highest sphere only in extemporaneous 
discourse. Think of the spiritual and the natural 
combining harmoniously in such an instance of the 
eloquence of the body as the following : " Treating 
of the sufferings of our Saviour, as though Geth- 
semane were in sight, he would say — stretching out 
his hand : ' Look yonder — What is it I see ? It is my 
agonizing Lord.' And as though it were no difficult 
matter to catch the sound of our Lord praying, he 
would exclaim : ' Hark ! hark ! do you not hear Him V " 
Wonderful preaching! We admit that it is of the 

* Life of Edwards, by Dr. Hopkins. 



DELIVERY IN PBEAGHING. 189 

best in its kind ; but we are contrasting witli it the 
very best of any other. 

13. We go on to say that it is against true art, 

AGAINST NATURE, AND, OF COURSE, AGAINST THE DOMIN- 
ION OF THE Holy Spirit, in Delivery, to put among 

PREPARATIVES FOR IT A PRESCRIBED OR PREMEDITATED 

SCHEME FOR REGULATING IT ; to determine beforehand 
what the emphases, looks, gestures, are to be in par- 
ticular parts, and perhaps to preactualize them in a 
rehearsal " practiced at the glass." On two accounts, 
this must be a preposterous way. In the first place, 
just action in speaking cannot be anticipated : the 
time for it must indicate it. It is only the critical 
moment itself that can give its idea ; it is contingent 
on the unimaginable futuritions and incidents of elocu- 
tion. But were it otherwise, good delivery after this 
method would be an impossibility. With a programme 
of action artistically perfect, the speaker would 
have no advantage ; he could not carry it out justly. 
He could make no good use of it. The very attempt 
to use it would disable him for proper elocution. 
What art could conceal the art he would be trying to 
practice ? and what effect on his delivery, from the la- 
bor to conceal it ? The hearers doubtless would not 
fail to know ; itself the surest testimony to its absurd- 
ity. As to all earnest action having an object ulterior 
to itself, it is an instinct of nature, that not its maniter 
but its object ; or, in such a business as that of public 
speaking, its subject with reference to its object, be 
exclusively regarded at the moment of performing it. 
Even a good reader obeys this instinct. " A reader is 



190 DELIVBBT IN PBExiCHING. 

sure to pay too much attention to his voice, not only 
if he pays any at all, but if he does not strenuously 
labor^" to withdraw his attention from it altogether. 
He who not only understands fully what he is reading, 
but is earnestly occupying his mind with the matter of 
it, would be likely to read as if he understood it. And 
in like manner, with a view to the impressiveness of 
the delivery, he who not only feels it but is exclusive- 
ly absorbed with that feeling, will be likely to read 
as if he felt it, and to communicate the impression to 
his hearers. But this cannot be the case if he is occu- 
pied with the thought of what their opinion will be of 
his reading, and how his voice ought to he regulated j 
if, in short, he is thinking of him.self, and, of course, in 
the same degree abstracting his attention from that 
which ought to occupy it exclusively. "f It is there- 
fore certain that there should be no labor in 
speaking to carry out a scheme of delivery. The 
study of delivery, now, must be forborne ; pro- 
per application to this study is previous, like the 
educational training by which one is furnished for ar- 
tistic action in all particular art performances. One 
who applies the principles of art {e.g.), in writing or 
in playing of an instrument of music, gives while do- 
ing this no direct thought to these principles ; they 
have become a second nature to him, through his 
familiarity with them. Scarcely more does the bee 
act by instinct in building its cell according to 

* In order to overcome a contrariant inclination, too wont to be 
besetting bim, 
f Whately. 



DELIVERY IN PREACHING. 191 

the principles of mechanics, than he does in his 
exquisite exemplifications of art. So acts the accom- 
plislied speaker in delivering his discourse. He has 
studied delivery ; but he is not studying it now. He 
knows the theory of delivery ; this has acquainted him 
with his old faults in speaking. He has corrected 
them ; he has formed good elocutionary habits. Hence, 
and hence alone, his security for proper action on 
occasions as they arise. 

14. In accordance with this principle of Delivery, 

VERY EMINENT PROFICIENTS IN IT HAVE PROTESTED 
STRONGLY AGAINST ALL ATTEMPTS TO FOLLOW OUT A FOR- 

CASTED PROGRAMME OF ACTION. The great tragedian 
of the recent past,^" after experience of the disadvant- 
ages of this method, gives his testimony concerning it, 
in these striking terms : " It has been imagined, even 
by enlightened minds, that in studying my parts I 
place myself before a glass, as a model before a paint- 
er in his atelier. According to them, I gesticulate, I 
shake the ceiling of the room with my cries. In the 
evening on the stage, I utter the intonations I learned 
in the morning : prepared inflections and sobs of which 
I know the number ; imitating Crecentini, who, in his 
Romeo, evinces a despair beforehand, in a passage 
sung a hundred times over at home, with a piano ac- 
companiment. It is an error. Reflection is one of the 
greatest parts of my labor. Following the example 
of the poet, I walk, I muse, or even seat myself on the 
margin of my little river : like the poet, I rub my fore- 
head ; it is the only gesture I allow mvself ; and you 

* Talma. 



192 BELIVEBT IN PREACHING. 

know it is by no means one of the grandest. Oh, how 
a thing becoming historical remains true ! If any 
one should inquire how I have found the greater 
part of my greatest successes, I should reply, by con- 
stantly thinJcing of them. We were rhetoricians and 
not dramatic personages. How many academic dis- 
courses on the stage ! How few words of simplicity ! 
But one evening chance threw me into the parlor with 
the leaders of the Gironde Party ; their sombre and 
disquieted appearance attracted ray attention. There 
were written there, in visible characters, great and 
mighty interests. As they were too much men of heart 
to allow these interests to be tainted with selfishness, 
I sa^v there manifest proofs of the danger of the coun- 
try. All were assembled for pleasure, yet no one 
thought of it. Discussion ensued ; they touched the 
most thrilling questions of the crisis. It was beautiful : . 
I imagined myself present at a secret deliberation of the 
Eoman Senate. It is thus, thought I, that men should 
speak. The country, v/hether it be named France or 
Rome, employs the same accents, the same language. 
If they do not declaim here, neither did they declaim 
in the olden time, it is evident. These reflections made 
me more attentive. My impressions, though produced 
by a conversation void of all emphase, became pro- 
found. An apparent calmness in these men, thought 
I, agitates the soul. Eloquence then may have forco 
without throwing the body into disorderly movements. 
I even perceived that discourse uttered without eifort 
or outcry, renders the gesture more energetic, and 
^ives more expression to the countenance. All these 



DELIVERY IN PJIEACHING. 193 

deputies, thus assembled before me, appeared far more 
eloquent than at the tribune, where, finding themselves 
a spectacle, they thought it necessary to utter their 
harangues in the manner of actors as we then were ; 
that is to say, of declaimers fraught with turgidity. 
From that moment I caught new light, and saio my art 
regenerated.''^ 

15. After proper self-culture in elocution and re- 
newing the prerequisite communion with the Holy 
Spirit, the only condition of success, the only object of 
preliminary concern, in a particular instance of preach- 
ing, IS TO BE FULLY POSSESSED, TO BE THOROUGHLY IN- 
SPIRED BY THE SUBJECT AND THE OCCASION. This is the 

prime necessity of all eloquence ; it was the discovery 
of the great Frencb actor, when his eyes were opened 
to see the true secret of delivery. Hence it was that 
reflection became his great labor ; that he walked, 
mused, sat on the margin of the river, rubbed his fore- 
head after the manner of the poet. He sought to 
absorb himself in his subject ; he left action to itself. 
Being qualified generally for his art, by acquainting 
himself with the philosophy of the voice and of ges- 
ture, and by just self-culture, in accordance with it, he 
assumed that what remained to him, as the prerequisite 
of success, was to get perfect command of his subject ; 
or, to speak better, to give the subject perfect com- 
mand and supremacy over him. This, witli the quali- 
fications just mentioned, is all that remains to the 
preacher ; and his is no other than the player's way 
of gaining it. That way is the thorough rumination of 
the subject, meditating on it over and over again ; 
9 



194 DELIVEBY IN PEE ACHING. 

DOt the committing to memory the words he is to re- 
peat, with premeditated action, but the working their 
meaning, their strength, into himself ; the filling him- 
self with their total sense ; the vitalizing himself with 
it in its breadth, length, depth and height ; the making 
it so live and rule in all his life, that its procession 
from him in delivery shall be rather a spontaneous 
outflow than the result of a separate memoriter 
effort. Doubtless, the memory is exercised, intensely 
exercised, even when this is done • but not exclus- 
ively or distinguishably to the consciousness from 
the other powers of the mind. The memory and 
these are united, are inter-blended in the operation, as 
rays in the sunbeam. There may be moments when 
it acts by itself, even in a delivery very good on. the 
whole ; but they are exceptive and anxious moments j 
and the delivery now deteriorates, and witnesses 
against itself as violating its norm. As soon as the 
recollective faculty is distinctively exercised, the 
speaker generally betrays the fact ; his hearers see his 
hesitation, and begin to tremble for him lest his 
memory should lapse, and to wish he had his manu- 
script lying open before him. 

16. It is impossible to presceibe a standard of 
ACTION FOR ALL PREACHERS. There are peculiar congrui- 
ties of pulpit delivery which must not be violated ; the 
preacher with his hearers is in the temple ; he is the 
representative of the awful presence of God ; on mat- 
ters of infinite moment he acts in the name of the great 
and dreadful Unseen. The difference as to interest 
between his business and that of any orator of the 



DELIVERY IX PRE ACHING. 195 

world, makes the latter, however great in itself, less 
than nothing comparatively. Without being under 
a total eclipse of spiritual illumination, and entirely 
out of the communion and harmony with the Holy 
Ghost, he cannot be insensible to this fact ; and if he 
has but a faint impression of it, he cannot allow him- 
self in certain modes and ways of action, which, in 
secular orators, are sometimes proper and even highly 
admirable ; they would be unnatural, monstrous, in the 
elocution of the ])ulpit. Nevertheless, who may give 
the preacher an absolute rule or criterion of delivery ? 
Beyond self-evident, palpable improprieties, every 
preacher is a rule to himself ; his idiosyncrasy is his 
rule. What would be a just measure to one, w^ould 
be a defective or an extremely excessive and absui-d 
one to another. The lion does not more differ from the 
lamb, tlian preachers from one another in elocutionary 
gifts. In different preachers, vehemence and gentle- 
ness, commotion and stillness, thunder and whisper, 
whirlwind and zephyr, are both alike appropriate 
characteristics ; as they are also very suitable and 
natural, in the same preachers at different moments. 
Both, too, are alike acceptable to the Spirit, who at- 
tempers His influences to the natures of His instruments, 
making them now" as the softest breath, now as a rush- 
ing mighty wind, or as lightning and fire. It is not 
by the quantity, but by the quality of pulpit action 
that the holy proprieties are on the one hand violated, 
and on the other maintained. There maybe the sub- 
limest form of spirituality in abundant and stormy 
action ; and there may be nothing better than the 



]9G DELIVERY IN PBEACHINO. 

affectation of tenderness, in a quiet, soft, i-eserved man- 
ner of delivery.* 

17. It follows from what we have just been saying-, 
or rather is included in it, that imitation can have 

NO PLACE IN JUST ACTION IN SPEAKING. In this aS 

well as in invention, in disposition, in the entire con- 
struction and finish of his discourse, a true speaker is 
himself and not another ; he is generally true even to 
his habitual imperfections of manner. Without re- 
nouncing his own identity he may profit by observ- 
ing excellencies and faults in the elocution of others ; 
he may thus acquaint himself better with his OAvn de- 
fects, instruct himself better generally in the regula- 
tion of his voice, emphasis, attitudes, etc.; and stimu- 



* How far violent or very demonstrative action may have place 
in preaching without indecorum, no rule can determine. White- 
field was often exceedingly demonstrative, hut so far as we know, 
never undignified or ungraceful. The severest criticism, that of 
Hume, Chesterfield, Franklin, Garrick, gave it transcendent praise. 
How vehement was the delivery of Chalmers ! how terrible that 
of Knox ! how lion-like that of Luther ! Each a mighty man of 
God, a chosen and an eminent vehicle of the power of the Holy 
Ghost, We once heard a sermon from the elder Mason, the de- 
livery of which combined, with unexceptionable propriety, a man- 
ner in the highest degree bold and even dramatic. He began 
with a rap on the desk, personating one knocking at the door — 
"a messenger from the world of spirits." He used personation 
freely in the midst of the discourse, and at the close, it rose to 
sublimity. The subject was — deliverance from tondage througli 
the fear of death. (Heb. ii. 15.) He first dramatized the death-bed 
scene of one who died in his sins — a wilful neglect er of this great 
salvation ; and then that of a triumphant believer. His manner 
was to the last in keeping with its surprising outset. We had 
no sense of anything at all amiss in this wonderful instance of 
pulpit elocution. It seemed to bo no less proper than unusual. 



DELIVERY IJSr PREACHING. 197 

late himself in studying the principles and philosophy 
of delivery ; but he could not but mar his own action 
by endeavoring to model it after another's. He might 
as soon change himself into another man as be natural 
any longer. If his hearers happen to be acquainted 
with the example he is striving to copy, they will not 
fail to see his weakness, and — what of itself sufficiently 
confutes all such imitation — they cannot but think it 
unfortunate for him ; a palpable vanity. A tolerable 
speaker he might perhaps have been if he had been 
content with himself ; he has made himself an intoler- 
able one by his pitiable emulation. It remains that 
after studying models with reference to general im- 
provement, the only thing in which they are to be 
imitated is that by which they made themselves 
models, namely, their absolute independence and for- 
getfulness of models in delivery. 

18. It seems to us that one of the chief causes of 
bad delivery in preaching, a sufficient cause of it, cer- 
tainly, is THE CHARACTER OP THE ORDINARY SERMON, 
SO CALLED, ESPECIALLY ITS DEFECT IN RESPECT OF THE 
ORATORICAL ELEMENT, THE BUSINESS-LIKE CHARACTER 

OF ALL TRUE ORATORY. Delivery in discourse takes 
its stamp, in part, from the sort of discourse which is 
given ; oratorical delivery requires an oration ; that 
is to say, a discourse which is an affair, an earnest, 
agonistic speech, which has a single point ulterior to 
itself, and which has no other concern than to carry 
that point. Preaching is too seldom discourse like 
this. It is sometimes chiefly expository, as perhaps it 
should be. But when preaching is not of this form, 



198 DELIVEliY IN P BEACHING. 

when it uses what has the name of the sermon, which, 
by its etymology should be an oration par excel- 
lence,^ it is frequently, if not generally, as a whole, 
no oration at all : it has several points instead of one ; 
perhaps indeed no point in particular. It treats sev- 
eral co-ordinate propositions ; it is rather an analysis 
than a synthetic speech, like that of a pleader at the 
bar; it makes a treatise or an essay; it is without 
oratorical unity ; of course, it cannot but be defective 
in oratorical delivery : and if such be the actual char- 
acter of preaching, as undoubtedly it is to a great ex- 
tent, this defect is but its natural and proper concomi- 
tant. Nor is there a possibility of the desired change 
in the elocution of the pulpit, while preaching retains 
this abnormal character. It surely ought not to re- 
tain it as extensively as it has done. Preaching in 
its ideal is a species of oratory ; the noblest form of 
it. In its ordinary efforts no discourse should excel 
it in singleness of design, or in strenuous, suasory, 
synthetic urgency to attain its end. In some of its 
specimens (those e. g. of Baxter, Edwards, Chalmers), 
no discourse, not that of Demosthenes or Burke, does 
in these respects excel it. Let preaching be generally 
true to its own idea, its supreme law as a means to the 
highest of all ends, and with just cultivation of de- 
livery, preachers, in respect to this part of eloquence, 
will cease to hide their " diminished heads " in the 
presence of other speakers. At least, it is only on 

* Why, else, sTiould the term sermon (speech), be restricted to 
sacred discourse, as if a secular oration was, comparatively, not 
a speech at all ? 



DELIVERY IN PREACHING. 199 

this condition that even with the utmost attention to 
delivery, much proficiency in it is to be expected. The 
character of the discourse will continue to overrule 
and determine that of its delivery, in conformity to 
itself. 

19. There is, let us add, a conventional restraint 
on pulpit elocution, from the preacher's place in the 
assembly. He stands above and at a distance from 
them, behind a desk, which conceals more than half 
his person. His seclusion may give him some con- 
veniences in conducting the immediate preliminaries 
of preaching ; but it should be no privilege to him in 
delivering his discourse. If an earnest speaker " ar- 
ticulates with every limb and joint, and talks from 
head to foot, with a thousand voices," how much is an 
earnest preacher curtailed of his means of bodily ex- 
pression, by the narrow enclosure which he occupies ? 
He is without advantage from his lower limbs ; his 
bust only is seen ; he cannot change his position ; his 
attitudes are but half visible, and for this cause, proba- 
bly, disagreeable. How must his delivery be marred 
by these subtractions of " the eloquence of the body ?" 
Compare with it that of a speaker who stands fully in 
view, and presents in his entire person, a complete, 
graceful example of this crowning glory of oratory. 
That preachers, exclusively, should be thus restricted 
in elocution is but a prescription of arbitrary tradi- 
tion ; nothing in the peculiarity of spiritual eloquence 
requires it ; it maims this noblest of all eloquences ; 
it presupposes a theory of preaching, which makes 
delivery in it a thing of little or no moment ; it has 



200 DELIVERY IN PBE ACHING. 

doubtless had no small influence in reducing it to this 
estimation, in the general practice, if not also in the 
opinion of the pulpit. If in the pulpit of the future, 
delivery is to assume its rightful supremacy, tradition, 
in this matter, will dominate no longer ; the princi- 
ples of true art, which are, at last, but the principles 
of simple nature, will assert their authority j and 
preaching, like speaking in the forum or the senate, 
will be free of all such abridgments of elocutionary 
force as tradition has so unwarrantably prescribed 
to it. 

20. Is IT TO BE EXPECTED THAT THE EEFORM TVILL 

ACTUALLY HAVE PLACE ? A change in the form of 
preaching is doubtless at hand. The renovating power 
which has been changing all things in science, in art, 
in the physical, social and civil life of man, cannot but 
be felt, indeed has manifestly been felt, by the modern 
pulpit. Already preaching, as to form, is, in several 
respects, different from what it has ever been. In 
some respects we think it is better. It is by no means 
changed as much as it should be. It ought to be in 
advance of the other instruments of change which are 
exerting themselves with such astonishing efficiency in 
every sphere of human life. There is no object of 
deeper interest to every true philanthropist, every one 
who identifies the progress of humanity with the suc- 
cess of the gospel, than that preaching should receive 
a new and healthful impulse, which shall give it the 
precedence to which it is entitled, — a just adaptation 
to humanity in its present excited and over-active 
state, and a regulating power of all the changes which 



DELIVERY IN PUEACHIIsQ. 201 

with such unparalleled rapidity are coming to. pass 
everywhere in the Avorld. But it is as yet very far 
from having this pre-eminence of control. There is an 
imperative demand for further variance, we might 
almost say a revolution in the form of it. And is not 
this demand to be met? In that Future of over- 
whelming interest, which all men feel to be just before 
us, which indeed is now opening itself upon us and in- 
spiring us with wonder at what is surely and swiftly 
coming, what will preaching be, if accommodated, as it 
should and must be if it is to play well its part — to 
the unparalleled circumstances in w^hich it will find 
itself? Imperfect as our anticipation of them must 
be, we cannot but be sure in general, from signs before 
us, that they will be circumstances of earnest, intense 
materialism, of an exceedingly practical, matter-of fact 
bearing, such as have not been dreamt of in all the 
past ; causes are already in operation before our eyes, 
which make the anticipation of this almost as reality 
itself. Surely amidst such circumstances, preaching, 
if true to its mission, will not take from the present 
or any former period, its measures or its methods of 
practice. There must be, in these respects, a novelty 
in it, parallel, or, when need be, antithetic to the 
novelty of its unexampled surroundings. Its character 
cannot be precisely foreseen; it will be, we would 
hope, as didactic, as discriminative, as solid, in all 
respects as scholarly, as it has been at any time ; we 
cannot but hope it will be so from necessities which 
will be upon it, and from its present advantages of 
culture. But how changed must it be, especially in 
9^ 



202 DELIVERY IN FREAOHING. 

its chief performances, in respect of oratorical free- 
dom, force and action? It cannot but be, pre-eminently, 
it would seem, of the nature of husiness — " business 
which is a business i""^ It will still treat " subjects ;" 
but it will need to treat them, not as terminating in 
themselves, or in the way of analysis or disquisition, 
but with reference to issues or specific ends : to de- 
termine first, not on either texts or subjects, but on 
points to be carried, on things to be done ; and, as in 
all earnest oratory, to be, in all its propositions, en- 
largements, utterances, ornaments, but a strenuous 
means of attaining definite ends : to strive, of course, 
to avail itself of the advantages of just delivery, the 
peerless eloquence of appropriate action. This, its 
chief means, it may no longer forego or neglect. 
Due attention to delivery, and due provision for it, 
will be a deeply felt necessity. It will suffer no tra- 
ditional trammels ; it will follow out the inviolable 
-principles of eloquence ; it will obey nature and the 
free Spirit of God. If it meet the high exigencies of 
the epoch, it cannot take the word of command from 
tradition, or the perfunctory examples of these or 
former times. 

* Preaclier, your business is a business; yet more than Senators 
and Advocates, you are Advocates and Senators : Be both. Let 
your pulpits be to you alternately a tribune and a bar ; let your 
word be an action directed to an immediate object : Let not your 
hearers come to hear a discourse, so much as to receive a message. 
Possess yourselves, possess them, of all the advantages, which 
pertain to the subjects of the pulpit. Your eloqvience has more 
artless aspects, and more vivid tints, than that of the Senate or 
the Bar ; nothing condemns it to abstraction ; everything impels it 
toicard sendhle facts." — Vinet, p. 503, 



DELIVERY IN PREACHING. 203 

21. But will the change after all have place? 
Will delivery in the preaching of the all-pregnant 
future, whose dawn is already advancing, have its 
rightful pre-eminence ? Will this form of preaching, 
which cannot but be new, be what it should be, in this 
grand respect ? Or will the construction of the sermon 
continue to be the all-absorbing concern of preachers 
and its delivery comparatively as nothing ? We can- 
not confidently say. The undervaluation of delivery 
at the present moment, and too generally in foregoing 
times, in view of its inherent unjustness and the stand- 
ing reprobation of it by the reason of things and the 
verdict of the human mind, begets hesitation as to the 
probability of a correction of it, under the influence of 
any possible circumstances ; and yet since it has pleased 
God to institute preaching as the leading instrumen- 
tality, the means of means, in applying his efficacious 
grace, must not " the wickedness of the wicked " rush 
on to its climax and its doom, if the correction shall 
not take place? In a practice of preaching so 
wrong, so utterly ineloquent, in the thing of chief mo- 
ment, as that now generally prevailing, will the Spirit 
of God who can give no sanction to inherent im- 
propriety of any sort, work with that plentitude of His 
power, which will be necessary to write " holiness to 
the Lord," on such inventions and aboundings of 
secular life, as those which we already see in such 
rapid progress must become in their culmination ? As, 
then, no change is to be expected in God's plan for 
reducing men to obedience to Himself, must not the 
change we are speaking of in preaching be a reality 



204 BELIVEBY IN PBEACHmG. 

at length, if the triumph of the gospel on earth is to 
be a reality ? 

22. And WHY should it not be inaugurated at 
ONCE ? The very occasion for it presupposes a high 
existing culpability in the ministers of the word. No 
tongue can express the evil of delivering Christian 
truths as if they were fictions. As far as preachers 
are chargeable with this evil, they have cause for the 
deepest humiliation. Next to counting Christ Himself 
a myth, nay identical with it in effect, is so represent- 
ing His doctrine. What infidelity whether in itself or 
in its consequences is worse ? We know it is pleading 
for a paradox to insist on the reform, as an immediate 
necessity ; but if a paradox be true and tlie truth im- 
portant, these facts imply criminality in its being a 
paradox,^ and imperatively require that it be so no 
longer. Think of it as we may, the prevailing way of 
delivery, in preaching, is matter for the profoundest 
regret to the ministry and the church. Whether it is to 
remain in the coming times or not, it should, for the 
sake of the times now present, from henceforth cease, 
or cease to be excused or tolerated. Infinite interests 
demand that the reform begin without delay. 

23. Let not the change seem impracticable. No 
circumstances, no powers of argument or persuasion, 
can of themselves effect it ; these can produce no 
spiritual fruit whatever ; and this, as we have seen, is 
the highest perfection of this kind of fruit ; but there 
is on this account no cause for discouragement. The 
power to be ultimately relied on, in the whole business 

* Paradox — Something against prevailing opinion. 



DELIVEBY IN PEE ACHING. 205 

of preaching, is the power of the Holy Ghost. It is 
the privilege, it is the duty, of preachers, to be full of 
the Holy Ghost, and workers togetlier with Him in 
every part of their labor. The chief thing, the only 
thing virtually necessary to the change, is what they 
cannot be wanting in, without sinning alike against 
themselves and against the higliest law of their func- 
tion, the law of all its laws. Remembering the Divine- 
Human character of preaching, let them rise above 
themselves, as they should and may without presump- 
tion, into the illuminations and sanctities of the Eternal 
Spirit ; and over all difficulties connected with the 
cultivation and practice of just delivery in preaching 
they will be already triumphant. And if they live to 
be preachers in the opening Future they will pass into 
it prepared for its eventful activities and develop- 
ments ; and whether they live or die, under the con- 
sciousness of their new impulses and experiences, they 
will well fulfill what remains of their sacred mission ; 
and for that part of it, at least, be able to endure the 
fiery ordeal through which every preacher's work, with 
himself, will have to pass in the judgment of the great 
day of the Lord. 



IX. 

FRAGMENTS OF THOUGHT 



I.~OPTIMISM. 

If there be several courses of action claiming our 
choice, some better than others, and one best of all, 
goodness obliges us to prefer this last to all the others ; 
goodness were otherwise disowned, in so far as it 
stands in the best above what it does in the better and 
the simply good — for all that is goodness which differ- 
ences the good from the best. Here, in brief, is 
the demonstration of Optimism. Optimism is true, if 
goodness may not be disallowed ; if the difference 
may not pass for nothing between good, better, and 
best 

It may be that a better than either of the solicitors 
of choice is a negation of them all ; doing nothing, let- 
ting the several courses remain ideal only, may be 
better than to actualize the best of them, which, in that 
case, were to obey the behest of Optimism. Absolute 
quietism, the latency of power, would then be the ex- 
pression of Optimism. 

(206) 



OPTIMISM. 207 

Applying this to the Deity, the existence of the 
world is proof that Optimism did not demand the in- 
ertia or latency of creative power. The rule of the 
best required this power to reveal itself in an actual 
creation. A world was a necessity, if Optimism was 
to be determinative. God would not have realized 
His own idea, or done what seemed to Him best, had 
He not given existence to a creation external to Him- 
self. 

And the same principle of necessity required that 
the creation be that which came into being — that, and 
not another. He could not have given existence 
to another without disowning goodness, for goodness, 
in His idea, stood in this creation above itself in any 
other ; there was no ideal creation, different from this 
that seemed to Him so good. The existing world, 
therefor C; and not another must have been created. 
This world was a moral necessity. 

And as with its creation, so likewise with its econo- 
my or government — the rule of the best could not but 
obtain. Among conceivable economies different from 
one another, as to goodness, the perfection and bless- 
edness of the Deity required Him to take the best. 
The All-Perfect, whose moral essence is pure goodness, 
could have been content with no other. 

Since, therefore, evil exists, the best world, under 
the best government, was one in which this was pos- 
sible ; and Optimism, the antitheton of evil, consists 
with this possibility. But the possibility of evil is not 
its reality ; there may be a prevention of the latter, 
though the former may have place. And goodness 



203 OPTIMISM, 

self-evidently demands its prevention, if this be pos- 
sible. This is true ; still, the preventive agency, as 
much as the creative and controlling, must abide under 
the sway of Optimism. That only which is best may 
be done to prevent the appearance of evil. The pos- 
sibility of preventing it, therefore, is thus conditioned. 
It cannot be prevented without offending against good- 
ness, if it be not preventable by the best agency that 
can be employed for the purpose. There is a good, a 
better, and a best, in conceivable agencies, in this case ; 
the idea of the best was in the mind of the Deity. He 
could have given reality to no other idea. Evil is not 
to be prevented, indeed is not preventable, by a viola- 
tion of the principle of Optimism. That, itself, were 
greater evil, virtually, than the evil it would prevent ; 
it would undeify God. 

The same necessity, the dominion of the best, holds 
as to the remedy or removal of evil. If there had 
been in the Divine Mind, a kind or plan of agency 
better than that which God has employed, it would 
have taken the place of this. If the direct interven- 
tion of physical power, or arbitrary volition, or aught 
else, had been better, this would not have been pre- 
ferred ; Optimism would have prevailed here, also : 
the remedy, otherwise, would have been worse, virtu- 
ally, than the evil. 

Optimism, then, the law, the prevalence of the Best, 
is the principle of the Divine goodness in the Universe. 
Nothing asserts its own truth with higher evidence 
than this proposition. To deny it, is to set goodness 
against itself ; to deny it, when its terms are under- 



OPTIMISM. 209 

stood, would seem to imply an intention to affirm a 
contradiction. 

In connection with the above, it is edifsn'ng to note 
some results of other applications of the doctrine of 
Optimism. 

It condemns wishing that the world did not exist. 
Among human wishes, two have been not a little pro- 
minent : that there were no Creation, and that there 
were no God. Both would abolish goodness — the for- 
mer the realization of the ideal of finite goodness ; 
the latter. Infinite goodness itself. Let the reasons 
for these wishes be recalled ; in what reproach do 
they implicate their authors ! 

Again, it challenges, in God's behalf, the highest 
praise of His creatures. It assures them that the best 
of worlds exists under the best of administrations, and 
the best agencies for preventing and remedying evil. 
How urgent the demand for praise, such as that which 
is made in the last three of the Psalms ! and how un- 
worthy and unhappy the spirit of those who refuse to 
meet this demand ! 

Once more : it is the absolute reprobation of sin. It 
is, by its name, the opposite of evil. It is the doctrine 
of the preference of the greatest good which sin would 
destroy. It announces that when a world was to be 
created, the best of all worlds was determined on ; the 
same preference of the best in establishing a govern- 
ment over the world ; the same in preventing, and the 
same in remedying evil. Let men believe and obey 
Optimism, and they could bear no sin in themselves, 
and omit to use no proper means in expelling it from 



210 OPTIMISM. 

the world. Applied to human life, Optimism is the 
same as in other applications of it. It requires men 
to adopt the best plan of life, to do all the good pos- 
sible to them, and to improve perfectly all their pow- 
ers, opportunities and means in diffusing good. 



II.— THE DIVINE PURPOSES. 

The i)urposes of Ihc Divine mind, tlioiigli without 
succession in time, have a relation to each other to 
wliich the order of their fulfilment correlates and 
agrees. And as events have their reason or justifi- 
cation in the order in which they occur, so have the 
Divine Purposes theirs, in their order or relation to 
each other. The particular purposes which eventuated 
in the exercises of creative power, depended on the 
prime purpose to create ; those which the scheme of 
redemption fulfilled, depended on the purpose to re- 
deem ; and the particular purposes themselves were 
also interdependent, requiring and required by one 
another. It is impossible for us to comprehend a 
Timeless order or relation; but as a reality it is not 
less certain to us than the existence of the Deity, to 
whom, as infinite or eternal, time, with its successions 
and changes, is wholly and necessarily objective or 
extrinsic. The inward activities of the Divine Nature 
are eternally immanent ; but its very idea, as all per- 
fect, requires that there be in these activities an abso- 
lutely perfect order ; and to suppose that any one of 
them may have no reference or relation to any or 
every other, is to make the Supreme Being God no 
longer. 

Proper regard to the fact of Timeless order or 

(211) 



212 THE DIVINE PURPOSES. 

inter-relation, in the Purposes of God, is indispensable 
to all just thinking concerning the relation between 
these Purposes and the Div^ine ways or conduct. The 
ways of God pertain to the sphere of time or the 
iinite ; His purposes exist in the infinite, or are time- 
less. If the latter fact be not kept in mind, — if the 
Divine Purposes and the Divine Ways are regarded 
as in the same category as to time, — the same predica- 
tions will be made of both, the distinction, in state- 
ment and discourse, between the finite and the infinite, 
will be lost, and nothing but the finite will remain. 
The Divine Mind will be conceived of as but a mag- 
nified human one, having a like beginning and ending, 
a like fore and after, a like capacity of growth and 
decrease, in its inherent activity, with the mind of 
man ; — with no other difference than that of enlarge- 
ment to an indefinite extent. Thus eternity becomes 
but a longer time; the infinite but a multitude of 
finites ; and the world, in its vicissitudes, an exponent 
of purposes, springing up and disappearing, in the 
mind of its Maker, one after another, in time, accord- 
ing to the Time-order which has place in the course 
of events. Whence, — since time, in the purpose, must 
antecede it in events, — a Fatalism, in all things, de- 
structive of the foundations of piety and virtue, and 
implying that there is, in truth, no such Being as an 
infinite and good God. It is incidental to the im- 
perfections of human language, that in speaking of 
events, and the Divine Purposes, in their connection 
with one another, we sometimes apply terms to the 
latter which are strictly appropriate only to temporal 



THE DIVINE PURPOSES. 213 

things ; but such anthropomorphisms must be carefully 
excluded when we would make precise statements of 
truth concerning the Nature of the Deity ; otherwise 
we shall make the Eternal and the Infinite altogether 
such a one as ourselves.* 

Let then the Ways of God, or events, be thought 
of as they are, and in the proper sphere. If now they 
commend themselves to right reason, when we pass to 
the Divine Purposes, of which they are the develop- 
ment, we shall find nothing here to vary their charac- 
ter, since this is the sphere of the infinite or timeless, 
in which there is no succession, no fore nor after, 
nothing to come into thought except the Divine Pur- 
poses themselves as existing in their eternal relations 
to one another. Of these purposes, with their inter- 
relations, the Divine ways are the expression. If, as 
thus expressed, they cannot be objected to, there is no 
ground of objection to them. The ways of God are 
justified, and equally so are His purposes. The justi- 
fication of the former is the justification of both. If, 
in all places of His dominion, the works of God 
praise Him, so likewise do His purposes, of which His 
works are the execution. 

The principle of identity, as to their justification, 

* An infinite length of Time, distinguished by successive 
parts, properly and truly so, or a succession of limited and un- 
measurable periods of Time, following one another in an infinite- 
ly long series, must needs he a groundless imagination. The 
eternity of God's existence is nothing else but his immediate, 
perfect, and invariable possession of the whole of His imlimited 
Life, together and at once : Vitae interminaUlis, tota, simul, ct 
perfecta possessio. — Edwards. 



2U THE DIVINE PURPOSES. 

between the Ways and Purposes of God, is !?pecially 
important in its application to the determination of 
the Divine Mind respecting the final destinies of man- 
kind. With very special explicitness and emphasis is 
the connection declared in Scripture between the 
agency and the purposes of God in this high matter. 
Equally explicit and emphatic is the verification of 
the Biblical word by the facts of history and expe- 
rience. In the sphere of human knowledge nothing 
is exhibited in a more outstanding and prominent 
manner than this connection. Manifestly and palpa- 
bly it has been the design of God to set this connec- 
tion forth to the view of mankind, so as to leave no 
place for reasonable doubt concerning it. Among a 
multitude of inspired testimonies relating to this sub- 
ject, see the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Ro- 
mans, and the words of our Lord in Mat. xi. 25-27. 
If the agency and the purpose of God, in this respect, 
have one and the same vindication, there is herein, as 
we shall see, no cause for stumbling or dissatisfaction 
with the latter. 

Let His agency, in part, be considered. First, He 
makes an atonement, by the sacrifice of His Son, 
for the sins of all mankind ; the greatest of all the 
wonders of His goodness. Next, through the virtue 
of this atonement, He introduces His Spirit into the 
world as the renewer and sanctifier of human nature, — 
the next greatest of His mercies. Then in direct con- 
nection with these mighty doings of infinite goodness, 
the proclamation of grace is made indiscriminately to 
all. Added to these, a system of suasory appliances 



THE DIVINE PURPOSES. 215 

is appointed, in which the Spirit strives with men 
with an urgency which forbears nothing but compul- 
sion. Finally, after resistance on the part of all, not 
to be overcome by all these amazing measures of 
Divine love, a discrimination appears ; the inward 
work of the Spirit is wrought in some, and not 
wrought in others ; the former receive the atonement, 
and are saved ; the others continue to reject it, and 
perish. 

Such are the Ways of God in their order. Ex- 
cepting the final one, unquestionably they demand 
adoring praise and wonder ; and as to the exception, 
the discrimination of sovereignty, what but blasphemy 
can ask, " What doest Thou ?" Either God must per- 
form the inward work of His Spirit in whom He will 
perform it, or perform it in all, or consign all to de- 
struction. Excluding the last, the choice lies between 
the other two. The demand that He do the second 
were impious ; for who knows that He would not, by 
doing it, dishonor Himself, and so destroy the happi- 
ness of the universe ? The first, therefore, remains as 
the only alternative : God must exercise His preroga- 
tive of showing mercy, in this form, to whom it seems 
best to Himself to show it. 

In doing this, it is denying His Deity to suppose 
that He acts without a sufficient reason. What the 
reason is we know not, and doubtless can never fully 
know J nor have we a .right to demand the reason; 
nor is it certain that the knowledge of it svould be 
for our advantage. But in ignorance of the reason, 
we know enough to command our praise. The objects 



216 THE DIVINE PUBPOSES. 

of the Divine preference, it is true, are not always 
those human wisdom would have selected. There are 
not many mighty, or noble, or wise ones of the world 
among them. But three facts are certain to us : First, 
not one of the human race can claim to be preferred 
for the sake of anything in or done by himself, or on 
the ground of compliance with conditions, there being 
no such compliance before the choice goes into effect. 
Secondly, the Divine agency generally exerts itself, 
not in the absence of proper activities, whether on the 
part of the chosen, or of others on their behalf, but 
on the contrary, in the midst of such activities, and 
so as to encourage and stimulate them in the highest 
degree. And thirdly, the perfection of the Divine 
Character makes it certain that there is nothing 
which should have influence on the determination of 
the mind of God, which has not this influence on it 
in its precise measure and weight. Such is the Divine 
agency in reference to the heirs of salvation. 

In respect to the others, there is one essential point 
of difference as to the reason of the Divine determi- 
nation. We have important knowledge as to this 
reason ; it lies in something within themselves. The 
elect are not elected because of any goodness of their 
own. It is for the sake of sin, wilful, persistent, in- 
corrigible sin in themselves, that the others are repro- 
bated. God waits to be gracious to them, until to 
wait longer is forbidden by goodness itself. They fill 
up the measure of their iniquity ; justice performs its 
strange work upon them ; they are abandoned to their 
own wilfulness ; they are judicially hardened, and 



THE DIVINE P UBP08E8. 217 

sealed to the day of perdition. Such is the Divine 
conduct ; it is its own vindication. According to 
what has been demonstrated, there is no difference as 
to vindication between this conduct and the eternal 
purpose which it fuUfils. 

Aversion is often expressed, and doubtless, oftener 
felt, towards tlie doctrine of God's purposes. But 
nothing is more imreasonable than this aversion, 
nothing of higher importance than the doctrine which 
provokes it. The world needs to know that there is 
no chance, no place for chance, in the dominions of its 
Almighty Maker and Sovereign. That all things are 
moving forward under the direction of an intelligence, 
a will, and a goodness which secures their infallible 
convergence and consummation in their appointed end, 
is no less certain than that God exists, and no less 
necessary than this, as a foundation for human hope 
and peace. 

10 



III.— MYSTEBY. 

In the idea of God, the world, comprising an im- 
mense variety of parts, is an absolute unit or whole. 
As a whole, it is what it is from the relation and 
unition of its parts, one with another -, and each of 
its parts is what it is from its membership with the 
whole ; all its antecedents, concomitants and sequents, 
and their interdependence on one another, contribute 
to give it its individuality. I am what I am, and 
everything in me, and pertaining to me, is what it is, 
from an exigency in the organism of the Universe, 
which acts upon me, and upon which, in some measure, 
I reciprocally act ; whence it follows that it is impos- 
sible to comprehend any, the least part of the world, 
without ability to comprehend the entire Avorld. I 
can no more understand why I am what I am, or why 
my bodily configuration, or size, or temperament, or 
any part of me, is distinctively what it is, than why 
the sum of existence, comprising the various worlds 
and creatures which make it up, is the aggregate of 
these, instead of others in their place. 

And as with the creation, so likewise with Provi- 
dence, the management of the creation ; ability to com- 
prehend the whole, is the indispensable condition of 
comprehending any part. The plan of Providence is 
also a unit. The purposes of the Infinite Mind, though 
(218) 



I 



MTBTERT. 219 

they do not begin and end like ours, exist in an order 
in which they are related, one to all the others, and 
these to that, at the demand of absolute unity or sys- 
tem. The purpose which now goes into effect has 
fitting respect to every other Divine purpose, and is 
what it is, from its being an integrant in a system of 
purposes, or in one comprehensive and all-controlling 
purpose. The dispensations of Providence, and all 
particular acts and arrangements under them, imply 
one another ; so that the indispensable prerequisite 
of comprehending anything whatever in the course 
of Providence is a complete knowledge of everything 
included in the entire scheme of Providence. 

And if God's works be mysterious to us, how much 
more His Nature ! A Being who exists, not by will, 
but of necessity ; whose non-existence is an impossi- 
bility even to omnipotence ; in whom nothing begins 
or ends ; the very idea of whom excludes time, with 
all its successions and changes ; to whom nothing is 
new or old ; absolutely free, yet whose choices and 
affections are eternally immanent and the same — how 
far must such a Being transcend forever the utmost 
reach of finite thought ! There are, it is true, certain 
predications which we may make concerning Him, 
assuming that certain perfections belong to Him, with 
which we are acquainted. If He is wise, and just, 
and good, since we know the qualities which these 
terms express, we know that He is incapable of every- 
thing self-evidently the opposite of them ; nay, more, 
we know that He cannot but prefer a greater to a 
less good ; he cannot disown the principle of Optim- 



220 MY8TEBT. 

ism. But beyond such inevitable intuitions, wo can, 
of ourselves, neither affirm nor deny anything as to 
the contents, or capabilities, or requisitions of His 
infinite IN'ature. Not even through a revelation from 
Himself, however perfect, can we ever know more 
than a part of what He is, and a part less than nothing, 
compared to what remains. 

To creatures, therefore, mystery in the ways of God 
is and ever will be a necessity. What the greatest 
good required, what world, what order of creatures, 
what disposition of them, what revelations of Himself 
and of Truth, what plans and acts of Providence were 
necessary to the realization of this good, only God 
Himself could know. If an intelligence, large as He 
could have created, be supposed to have existed when 
He was about to begin His works, it could have had 
no anticipation of the first or any other one of these ; 
or have conjectured any single step of an agency 
which was to move under the direction of perfect fore- 
knowledge of all the possibilities, contingencies and 
futuritions embraced in the scheme of operations from 
beginning to end. How utterly ignorant must it 
have been, as to what should be the limit of the Crea- 
tion, or whether in time it should have a limit ; or, 
whether such orders of creatures as the angelic and 
human should be brought into being — or if so, how 
related to each other ; whether there should have 
been such a pre-Adamite earth as that which preceded 
the creation of man ; or, what constitution of things 
man should be put under ; or, in the event of his fall, 
what thereafter behooved to be done through the 



MTSTERY. 221 

progress of time, until the final consummation ! How 
forcible on this point the questions put to Job, by the 
Almighty Himself, out of the whirlwind ! 

Nor is it in any respect to our disadvantage, or, so 
far as we can see, inconsistent with Optimism, that 
the ways of God should be a mystery to us. On the 
contrary, mystery is itself one of the means of the 
greatest good — an indispensable means. That God 
should be evermore, both in Himself and as to the full 
significance of His works — deus absconditus — a God 
who hideth Himself from us, is essential to our highest 
good. It is to His own glory, and therefore to our 
advantage, that He remain for ever unsea,rchable and 
past finding out to perfection. He were no longer a 
God to us if He were not to our apprehension the 
Incomprehensible ; the infinite would be no more. It 
is not the part of true science, it is the renuncia- 
tion alike of reason and of piety, to stumble at mys- 
tery. The highest illumination, the profoundest 
philosophy, the greatest virtue and happiness of a 
creature is attained, when, with an adoring sense of 
the unfathomable Being and counsels of God, he can 
utter from the lowest depths of his soul such words as 
these of the humble Psalmist : '' Lord, my heart is not 
haughty, nor mine eyes lofty ; neither do I exercise 
myself in great matters, nor in things too high for 
me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a 
child that is weaned from his mother ; my soul is even 
as a weaned child. ^'' 



IV.— HAPPINESS. 

Among objects, ideal or real, some are pleasing, 
some only unpleasing or painful. The latter, for 
their own sake, cannot be desired or regarded as 
good. If they are ideal merely, goodness forbids 
their becoming real ; if they are real, it requires their 
destruction. Only the possibility that good ulterior 
to themselves may be educed from them, can make 
their actuality consistent with the dominion of good- 
ness. Objects which only give pain, apart from the 
possibility of their being in some way made useful, 
are simply noxious. There can be no such objects, in 
reality, under the requisition of goodness ; they can 
exist only in idea. 

If things simply and absolutely painful might be 
supposed to be good in themselves, their realization 
were not to be desired. But such things are not in 
themselves good. Even the sublime goodness, which 
suffered in the Person of Christ, would not have been 
goodness if it was to have had no fruit of goodness, 
or if its sufferings had terminated in themselves. 
Better would it have been, on that supposition, that 
they had never been a reality. They were, in truth, 
not good — not in any view desirable. 

It is thus manifest that goodness presupposes good 
(222) 



HAPPINESS. 223 

ill its ultima tion ; to be goodness, it must tend to and 
result in good, or have its fruit unto happiness. That 
is not goodness which in itself, and its uses or results, 
is pure and permanent unhappiness. The estate and 
the fruit of goodness may be unhappy for a time, 
through its own sacrifices for the sake of good, or 
the abuse it receives from its enemies ; but that good- 
ness should in no way and at no time result in happi- 
ness, or in less happiness than it foregoes or denies 
itself, is a contradiction ; and this, in principle, pro- 
portions the value of goodness to its utility or fruit- 
fulness in happiness. The tree of goodness, as our 
Lord taught, is known by its fruits ; fruits of absolute 
unhappiness or pain for its own sake, show that the 
tree which produces them is not a good one ; the 
greater the fruits of happiness, on the other hand, 
the more excellent the tree. 

The manner of the connection of happiness with 
goodness, or how the latter is to result in the former, 
is not always obvious ; as far as can be seen, there is, 
perhaps, no mode in which the two can be conjoined ; 
nevertheless goodness assumes the absolute and final 
disconnection to be impossible : goodness trusts in 
itself as the principle or agent of good ; has the as- 
surance of faith where sight is denied it, as to its 
appropriate ultimation ; anticipates the advance of 
happiness, as the end of its painful sacrifices, when 
these it is called to make. Amidst its greatest suf- 
ferings, compensatory joy is set before it ; it casts its 
bread upon the waters, assured of receiving it again 
after many days, if not sooner ; it does not doubt, 



224 HAPFIJ^USS. 

when it goes forth and weeps, bearing precious seed, 
that it shall come again with rejoicing, bringing its 
sheaves with it : applying the most " crucial '• of 
tests to it, it will be found to have happiness, its own 
or others, as its ultimate end. 

The doctrine that goodness has utility or happiness 
for its principle and last end, cannot be reproached, 
without first doing an injury to happiness, by discon- 
necting its idea from that of goodness and setting it 
forth in this dishonorable isolation. The two ideas, 
in truth, are neither separate nor separable. As good- 
ness must comprehend happiness, virtually, in order 
to be goodness, so happiness, in its chief element, is 
goodness itself. Not only is the good man the only 
happy one, but it is his goodness, more than aught 
else, that makes him happy. Goodness, for goodness 
and happiness' sake, may suffer pain ; but while it 
thereby advances itself, it is potential happiness, in an 
equal degree, to its subject and others. In this view 
of happiness our Lord appears transcendent in it, 
above all others, in the extremity of His passion. In 
a full view of His estate, there was not, out of the 
sphere of the Infinite, one as happy as He was amidst 
the overwhelming flood of His piacular sorrows. 

It is only by identifying happiness with present 
enjoyment, or assuming that there is no happiness, in 
so far as pleasurable feeling is interrupted, that Christ, 
in His sufferings, can be esteemed unhappy. Let hap- 
piness be taken as including goodness in itself ; or, 
instead of naming it happiness, let it be called good — 
its completest name ; and its just and inevitable dis- 



HAPPINESS. 225 

tinction is that of the greatest good — the pursuit 
and goal of Optimism. 

It follows from what has been said, that the only 
absolute unhappiness is sin — that is to say, rebellion 
against goodness. This, in its very idea, is the adver- 
sary of happiness. It must be counteracted and de- 
feated, to prevent its proving the destruction of uni- 
versal good. Everything else may be made by goodness 
to subserve the greatest good ; sin is an exception. 
The sinner's only hope is in repentance and forgiveness. 
Incorrigible impenitence is necessary ruin. 

10* 



v. — SIN. 

Sin, or moral evil, is absolutely or only evil. Other 
evils, which are made necessary by sin, are means of 
good ; but sin is the means of no good, in the strict 
sense of the expression. It would, on the contrary, 
destroy all good, if not effectually counteracted. In 
a system in which sin has place, other evils may not 
be ultimately evil, but good — things, on the whole, to 
be desired. They may counterwork sin, undo its mis- 
chief, prevent further mischief from it ; cultivate good- 
ness ; subserve the pursuit of the highest good attain- 
able after sin has entered. But sin itself, which gave 
occasion for these evils, would, in its destructiveness 
of good, hinder them also from promoting good, and 
work, through them, to the increase of itself; and 
would pervert everything else unto evil, and so make 
the condition of the universe merely evil, and the non- 
existence of the universe an object of desire. The ills 
of life, so called, the afflictions of good men, the chas- 
tisements of God, the severest punishments of sin, are, 
in a comprehensive view, the means of good — the 
necessary means of the greatest good, where sin is to 
he encountered ; hell itself is so, regarded as the punish- 
ment of sin. But sin in itself, and in its proper effects 
and tendencies, is simply evil, out of which good, as 
its natural product, can no more come than light out 
(226) 



Sm, 227 

of darkness, sweet out of bitter, cold from burning 
heat. Optimism, therefore, which, in principle and 
activity, seeks only good, has no need of sin, and as a 
means' adapted, in itself, to an end, can make no use of 
it; on the contrary, it has, from first to last, to work 
against it and destroy its works. It may have to take 
occasion from it to employ instruments and agencies 
of its own, which, in the absence of sin, would have 
been unnecessary. It may turn the machinations of 
sin against itself, and thus produce good, not other- 
wise to be attained ; but this good is from its own 
activity, in contending against sin ; not from sin as an 
agent or means of good. The word means is some- 
times used in a loose sense, in which it includes what- 
ever forms of instrumental agency may spring incident- 
ally from urgent occasions • as when e.g., a pestilence 
is said to be a means of health, because it occasioned 
the invention of medicinal or other remedies against 
future visitations of the calamity. But there is, in 
such a use of langnage, no intention of confounding 
means and occasions ; or, to take the illustration just 
instanced, to say that the pestilence, and the remedies 
bear the same relation to health. The pestilence was 
the means of death or disease ; the means of health 
were the remedies, of the invention or application of 
which the pestilence was the occasion. Whether of 
the remedies or their effects, the pestilence was a 
means, only in the sense in which everytliing is said to 
be a means, which leads, however incidentally or casu- 
ally, to results ulterior to itself. 
Sin, instead of being the means of the greatest good, 



228 SIK. 

is a means of preventing this, in so far as sin, with 
its proper effects, cannot be excluded, under the best 
mode of agency which can be employed for the pur- 
pose. The good, attainable in the absence of sin, was 
greater than that which could be a,ttained after its 
entrance ; otherwise, sin was the indispensable con- 
dition of the greatest good, originally ; and the 
earnest pursuit of this, while repelling, or seeking 
to prevent sin, was impossible, unless one may be in 
earnest in seeking to defeat his own ends. 

But though sin be not the means of good, may not 
the remedy of sin, with its evils, have been originally 
necessary to the greatest good? If it was, tlien, the 
greatest good, demanding this remedy as indispens- 
able to its attainment, demanded, at the same 
time, sin — apart from which there was no place 
for the remedy ; and the answer to the question has 
already been given. It may be that advantage may 
come from a remedy beyond that which was directly 
sought from it ; but to make a remedy originally neces- 
sary to the greatest advantage, is to make the evil — 
that is, in the present case, sin — also necessary, with- 
out which there is no need or place for the remedy. 
Where there is a disease, there may be nothing better 
than a remedy for it ; but it were better, if it might 
be so, to have neither disease nor remedy. He surely 
were " a physician of no value," however famous as a 
curer of disease, who makes the disease which he 
cures. 

As the plan of the world involved the possibility 
and the futurition of evil — though to be prevented, if 



Sm. 229 

it might be, under the best preventive agency— the 
Divine Goodness, to which all things in the world's 
appointed coui-se were manifest, could not but have 
had reference to the rise of sin, and anticipated and 
provided against it even from the beginning ; and the 
arrangement and ordering of all things in creation and 
providence could not but have been accordingly de- 
termined on. But this proleptical or prudential re- 
ference no more interfered with the desire of the 
the Deity that sin might not be, or with His using 
proper means to prevent it, than does his foresight 
of the future certainty of sin, now, God did, from 
the first, as He now does, oppose Himself to sin. 
He did not and does not want it. It is, as it ever 
has been and must be, the abominable thing which 
His soul hateth. He made all things good ; it was 
desirable, that is to say, it was for the best, that 
they should remain so. He used the best agency to 
keep them so. It was not best to depart from this 
agency, in order to prevent the dire change which was 
made in the state of the world by sin. Better than this 
variation from His established order, was inflexible 
adherence to it, together with the Remedial Scheme 
which He purposed to introduce, upon the perpetration 
of sin. But it was not better for the change to take 
place. Sin gave occasion for new procedures of Divine 
goodness, which was still intent on gaining the great- 
est good now achievable ; but that this was greater 
than that which would have been attainable, if sin had 
not entered, supposes either that God preferred a less 
good to a greater, as the end of His works, or that 



230 '5-^. 

He had need of sin, the enemy of all good and the 
cause of evil, of which He only can know the magni- 
tude, in order to gain the greater ; each of which 
would undeify Him. It does not hence follow that 
there was a change or an after-thought in the mind of 
God. The only thing necessary to be assumed is, that 
God, the Infinite and Incomprehensible, is incapable 
of any agency inconsistent with goodness, or with sin- 
cerity in opposing or resisting sin. An assumption 
contravening the theory of the universe, which makes 
Eedemption or the Remedial system the prime end of 
the Divine agency in creation and providence. All 
things were made by and for Him, who, in due time, 
became the Redeemer of man ; but — except in the sys- 
tem of the Divine purposes, of which the order is 
anti-typical to that of events — He was not a Redeemer 
when they were made ; and the prolepsis, or anticipa- 
tion of Redemption, was not inconsistent with the 
earnest use of the best agency for preventing the ne- 
cessity for it. 



VI. — THE REIGN OF SIN, 

Volition, the act of willing, follows prevailing de- 
sire, or what appears best at the moment of its occur- 
rence ; and under the influence of sin, this appearance 
always belongs to evil. It is the peculiar function of 
sin, to make evil seem the greatest good, when an ex- 
ercise of the will is about to put itself forth, under its 
command. It is impossible that evil, as such, or for 
its own sake, should be preferred before good ; it is 
also impossible, that to the view of any one, however 
debased by sin, evil and good, as such, should exchange 
qualities or lose their essential distinctiveness from 
one another. Nevertheless, while, and in so far as sin 
reigns within any one, his preference is steadfast and 
inevitable in favor of evil. It is the work of sin to 
produce this preference ; that is, as before said, to 
make evil appear more desirable than good — or better, 
at the moment of volition, than any good in its stead. 
Here, at a glance, is seen the nature of the Dominion 
of Sin. Its beginning is in Deceit ; the sinner is. drawn 
away of his own desire, and enticed ; hence a false ap- 
pearance, wherein is the inception, and the elemental 
life or essence of sin. (See James i. 14, 15, and com- 
pare Genesis iii. 6.) Thus it is that sin, the enemy of 
good, whose good is evil, begins its work of death. It 
does its first mischief in deluding the^inner ; it is to 

(231) 



232 THE liEIGN OF SIN. 

him a voluntary enslavement to delusion ; it makes 
him the victim of false appearance ; it starts him in a 
career of desperate emnity to good and goodness in 
himself ; and according to this mad beginning, he pur- 
sues his way, the agent of his own ruin, and fitted to 
be an instrument of ruin in tlie world. 

The history of sin, presents it as an organized Em- 
pire. The first sinner was an angel. We know noth- 
ing as to tbe manner of his fall ; whether it originated 
in a confederacy with others, or whether they became 
his confederates after its occurrence, we are not inform- 
ed ; but he appears in the history of our world, under 
the name of Satan, as the supreme head of an empire, 
and as such holds a place of impious rivalry and de- 
fiance to the Almighty Maker and Kuler Himself. 
Already " the prince " of evil angels, he sought to add 
the race of man to the number of his subjects, and the 
record of his success stands in the foreground of the 
sad fortunes of mankind. Thenceforth, he became 
" the prince,'' or " god," as he is variously called, of 
this world also ; a bad eminence, which he has always 
found it too easy to maintain. The earth, consequently, 
is the seat of a kingdom of Satan, having its own com- 
pact, its own constitution and laws, its own most effec- 
tive administration, and the nations and generations 
of men in voluntary subjection to it. Through this 
mighty organism, sin is ever and everywhere working 
to the destruction of good, and the multiplication of 
evil, with a force and to an extent not to be com- 
puted. 

The accomplishment of the arch-adversary's design 



THE REIGN OF SIN. 233 

against man, required but one attempt. The race ex- 
isting in germ, in a common sire, from whom it was to 
spring in successive generations, fell in his fall — the 
natural result of the debasement of humanity in him. 
Success with Adam was the success with his posterity. 
The race was lost in him. Until man shall cease to 
be born of woman, flesh to be born of flesh, each indi- 
vidual, wlien he comes into the world, will be ''by 
nature a child of wrath, shapen in iniquity and con- 
ceived in sin." The contrary could not be, but by 
superseding natural by the intervention, in every in- 
stance, of supernatural force ; which, if the principle 
of Optimism determined the first arrangement, could 
not be admitted — the consequence to be excluded by 
it, being, in the Divine view, in that case, not so unde- 
sirable as the intervention itself would be on the 
whole. The result, therefore, was inevitable. Through 
a perversion of the constitution under which our na- 
ture had its beginning, the first man's ruin was the 
ruin of mankind. 

Nor has the perversion of Divine order in the inter- 
est of sin been restricted to this fundamental instance. 
Man was to live in families, in communities, in cities, 
in states ; in each of these were to be spheres of closer 
affinity, fellowships of pleasure, of trade, of science, 
and letters, etc. ; whence special customs, modes of 
life, maxims, principles of action, compacts, etc., each 
forming a distinct centre of influence. All have been 
perverted, and all, through perversion, have contribu- 
ted to enlarge immeasurably the predominance of sin. 
And the more so, immeasurably, because on the whole, 



234 THE BEIGN OF SIN. 

and in each particular, the original enemy, with the 
evil principalities and powers under his command, has 
never ceased to apply the machinations of his own in- 
dustrious sagacity. Nor is the view of perversion yet 
complete. It has been extended through the entire 
physical sphere, all natural agencies and forces — the 
light, the air, all the elements, all the ordinances of 
heaven and earth : to use sacred language, " the whole 
creation," subsidized by sin, " has been made to groan 
and travail together in pain until now." 

Moreover, sin has its own individual organisms — 
establishments directly formed by itself ; fellowships 
and foundations originally intended and constructed 
as engines of evil j institutions of error, idolatry, in- 
iquity of every form, vast and manifold, in and through 
which the various agents of evil operate, with every 
advantage for success, all under the control and energy 
of the prime Author of evil. 

The actual varieties in which sin has appeared in 
human life, and its triumphant progress from age to 
age, correspond with these great facilities for extend- 
ing and demonstrating its power. Its expression 
toward man himself has been in every form of lust, 
deception, injustice, rapine, murder, cruelty, violence ; 
toward God, in irreverence, insult, blasphemy, idolatry, 
atheism ; in which, and in all their subordinate forms, it 
has, in all time, overspread the face of the earth, as 
the waters cover the sea. Before the flood, every 
imagination of the thoughts of man's heart being only 
evil continually, all flesh corrupted its way on the 
earth, and filled it with violence ; insomuch that, in the 



THE BEIQN OF SIN. 235 

language of the sacred record, it repented God and 
grieved Him at His heart that He had made man. 
From its second beginning until the advent of Christ, 
the course of mankind is traced in the first chapter of 
the Epistle to the Romans ; with which profane re- 
cords fully concur ; and this transcript of atrocity is 
equally applicable to the generations which have fol- 
lowed. 

And it immensely enhances the evil of sin's enormi- 
ties among men, that it has put them all forth, against 
incessant opposition to it, on the part of the Divine 
goodness. For, after the first transgression of man, 
the Remedial scheme, the best which that goodness 
could devise, immediately began to exert itself Atone- 
ment was anticipated, punishment was stayed, pardon 
was offered to repentance, institutions of grace were 
appointed, and in every appropriate mode, the agency 
of the Holy Spirit was exerted. Nor was it only in 
forms of forbearance and gentleness, that the goodness 
of God strove against sin. It employed severity as 
well as pity ; it arrayed against incorrigible impeni- 
tence the terrors of Avenging justice ; it set forth signal 
examples of this justice, to induce others to repent ; 
through judicial abandonments it exhibited sin as 
dreadfully punishing itself, by the multiplication of 
monstrous forms of evil ; it pointed man to whole na- 
tions, one after another, one by means of others, per- 
ishing through their sinfulness ; it announced eternal 
death and hell as following on the heels of obstinate 
guilt ; in fearful sights and signs, in shakings and con- 
vulsions of nature, it sounded loud alarms to the world. 



236 THE REiaN OF SIN. 

Thus God has contended, and thus He is still contend- 
ing against sin, which appears in the greatness and terri- 
bleness of its dominion, in that even against such 
opposition to it, it can not only maintain itself, but 
pervert this very opposition into the occasion of its 
self-aggrandisement. How eminent among mysteries, 
this most outstanding fact of the mutual militancy of 
sin and the Divine goodness ! Yet even above this, as 
cause for amazement, stands another very familiar 
fact — namely, that men, with knowledge of the former 
fact, and with bitter experience in themselves of the 
deadliness of the reign of sin, and often with lively 
apprehensions of the peril of final and absolute subju- 
gation to it, in the eternity to come, impending over 
them every moment, still, by their own choice, keep 
themselves exposed to this peril. 



Vn.— MERCY. 

There is in sentient being, so far as we are ac- 
quainted with it, a self-protective property called anger ^ 
which, on a sudden attack, instantly springs into exer- 
cise against the assailant. But in rational creatures 
this constitutional element is under the law of good- 
ness, against the interest of which its indulgence is 
not to be allowed. When, therefore, its proper end, 
self-protection, ceases to require its exercise, it should 
be suppressed, since it would produce only pain or 
unhappiness, which, if not necessary, is inconsistent 
with the rule of goodness. A good being cannot in- 
dulge anger for no purpose : simply vindictive or 
malign anger resteth nowhere, except in the bosom of 
fools. (Eccles. vii. 9.) 

If this property belong to the nature of the Deity, it 
must in Him, also, be subordinate to goodness, the 
glory of every good being. The All-Perfect, the pat- 
tern of perfection to His creatures, can give no ex- 
pression to useless anger. The Scripture ascribes this 
feeling to the Divine Being, in the strongest terms of 
irascible passion : " God is jealous, and the Lord re- 
vengeth ; the Lord revengetli and is furious ; the Lord 
will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He re- 
serveth wrath for His enemies." (Nah. i. 2.) But to 
apply such language to God, in a sense supposing Him 



238 MERCY. 

to be reveBgeful, like a man iDfuriated with malignant 
passion, were to set the Scripture into discord with 
itself, and to make the Deity an object of infinite 
horror to His creatures. Over every thing in the 
constitution and essence, and entire agency of God, 
the supremacy of goodness is immanent and absolute. 
His anger, in its highest manifestations, its severest 
inflictions, is the servitor and agent of His goodness. 
If it destroys some, it is becanse something worse would 
be involved in sparing them. If it makes a hell, it 
does this work of indignant justice, because in not 
doing it, it would cease to be goodness, or refrain from 
using the necessary means of the gTcatest good. It 
has had to do this dreadful work. The first sinners, 
the devil and his angels, are reserved under chains of 
everlasting darkness ; and the same is the inevitable 
doom of those of mankind who will not forsake their 
fellowship. For the way of goodness is not that of 
mere will : it has its own indispensable and immutable 
conditions. It would defeat itself, it would, in effect, 
cease to be goodness, if it did not observe proper 
mode ; or if it disregarded moral proportion or har- 
mony in its actings. God cannot act out of harmony 
with Himself. He were no longer God, if, in any 
movement, in or out of Himself, there were a non-con- 
currence of any one of His perfections ; if, e.g.^ He 
should put forth an exercise of poiuer from which 
wisdom should dissent ; or an exercise of mercy against 
the protest of justice. In strictest truth, what God, as 
God, can do, is not what power or mercy can do — for 
God is more than power or mercy ■'— but what can be 



MERCY. 239 

done by an activity in which every divine attribute 
can combine and coalesce. It is one of the worst fruits 
of sin, that an opinion which denies this highest of 
necessities prevails among men. They think the good- 
ness of God may take the form of mercy by arbitrary 
will ; on this assumption they reason and construct 
their theories and systems ; — an assumption which is 
itself virtually the sum of delusion, involving the un- 
deifying of God, the end of all good and goodness in 
the universe. 

There was, as the event proved, a possibility of 
showing mercy to man, when he brought the need of 
it on himself But this possibility had its ground in 
another, namely, the possibility to the Divine goodness, 
of so preparing its way to take the form of mercy, that 
it might do so and yet remain goodness to the end ; or 
not do ultimately more evil than good. There was 
'this latter possibility, but the ground of it did not lie 
in simple will or power, but in a sufficiency and a 
readiness in the Divine goodness to make a self-sacri- 
fice, which was itself the highest instance of that good- 
ness, and the comprehension of all the good thenceforth 
to be communicated to mankind. Two subordinate 
ends required to be answered : First, the adequate 
revelation of Avenging justice, or the Divine displeas- 
ure against sin, the measure of which is nothing less 
than that of the Divine goodness itself, since of this 
goodness and all its possible fruits, sin is the enemy 
and would be the destroyer ; and, secondly, the applica- 
tion of an agency by which sin itself can be destroyed, 
and the original order restored in those to whom the 



240 MBBCr. 

sacrifice is ultimately available -, since, otberwise, the 
effect of the sacrifice would be but to promote and 
aggrandize the power of sin. Self-evidently these 
two were indispensable prerequisites to the course of 
goodness toward man. Aud incidental to them, there 
was this contingence, namely, the aggravation of final 
unhappiness to such as might, in persistent contempt 
of goodness, choose to abide under the dominion of sin. 
The conditions involving the contingency were met : 
the possibility became a reality. The reign of Mercy 
was instituted: Goodness — establishing itself on its 
own firm and everlasting foundation ; meeting all exi- 
gencies of Holy justice ; securing itself against ultimate 
defeat and abuse — changed its original form, and, 
thenceforth, instead of simple kindness or favor, be- 
came favor to the guilty ; wlierein, in countless va- 
rieties, and in fulness, as that of the sea, it has abound- 
ed to mankind. 

It is impossible to us to know in what respects 
goodness had to forego its first course of agency, the 
course it would have pursued, if sin had been unknown. 
A different object was now before it. Known unto 
God are all His works from the beginning of the 
world ; the end ultimately to be attained by them 
must, therefore, have also been known to Him ; but 
this, before the entrance of sin, did not hinder His 
earnestly pursuing the end which might have been at- 
tained in the absence of sin ; else, as has been already 
said, God's foreknowledge would subject Him alto- 
gether to Fate, — that is to say, there were in truth no 
God. And if He did aim at this end, means suited to 



MERCT. 241 

its attainment murft have been employed by Him. 
What they were, or, beyond the negative intuitions of 
reason, what they were not, it were presumptuous in us 
to attempt to imagine, much more to claim, as too 
many have done, to have positive knowledge. Not 
contingent possibilities or requisitions, but inspired 
teaching and the facts of history and experience, are 
what we are concerned with. According to these, the 
economy of goodness proceeding on its new basis, was 
wonderfully new in many fundamental particulars. It 
required Human Nature to be constituted anew, under 
a new Head, and in a new Root. It made new con- 
ditions and terms of favor with God ; it appointed new 
institutions and ordinances of life ; it gave access to 
new resources of strength and happiness ; it opened 
new prospects ; it made new promises, and threatened 
new penalties ; it called for a new and highly peculiar 
form of character ; it involved new and stupendous 
fortunes to mankind. 

It applied its provisions and influences to the entire 
race ; it blessed the entire race with mercies innumer- 
able, and of immeasurable value. But it did not at 
once undo the perversions and mischiefs of sin ; it did 
not restore at once the original order of the world ; it 
did not abolish natural evils ; it did not exclude temp- 
tation or the tempter; it did not reverse the sentence 
of bodily dissolution, or exempt man from disappoint- 
ment, pain, or any form of disease ; it did not preclude 
enmities among men toward one another ; it left itself 
subject to malignant opposition from evil angels and 
men ; it was to make its way through desperate con- 
11 



242 MEBGT. 

flicts, and alternate success and defeat, to be continued 
to the end of time ; and at last the dire necessity would 
remain to it of consigning the impenitent to enhanced 
unhappiness. 

The manifestations and achievements of Goodness, 
both before and after the change of its way, will at 
last demonstrate the undeviating supremacy of Optim- 
ism in the universe. It will then be made evident 
that as the best world was brought into existence by 
creative power, so the best management of it will have 
been maintained through the entire course of time. 
There will be nothing to be excepted, nothing instead 
of which something better might have been done. Not 
so good would have been the agency necessary to pre- 
vent the entrance of sin, as that negative agency 
which permitted this, connected with its sequel, the 
institution of the Eeign of mercy. Not better would 
it have been to have employed a different agency to 
that which was exerted to prevent the predominance 
of sin and the doom of the lost. Still it will remain 
self-evident that greater good would have been possible 
if sin, with its evils, had never been known. The do- 
ing of mercy will fill Heaven with eternal wonder and 
joy ; it will make revelations of goodness which but 
for it would have had no place ; God, in one aspect of 
His character, will be known, as otherwise He could 
not have been. But better, nevertheless, had it been 
if no occasion for the exercise of His mercy had arisen ; 
if His goodness had been left to pursue its course as 
goodness simply ; to employ its unsearchable resources 
for the production of goodness and happiness in the 



MERCY. 243 

universe, without a necessity for a Hell. The inflic- 
tions of Avenging justice in punishing incorrigible sin, 
are not to be spared ; thej produce a sense, as salutary 
as it is awful, of the majesty of law, and the strength 
and stability of government. But it is pure malignity 
only that can refrain from regret at the demand for 
them ; and it is only this demand, this inexorable ne- 
cessity, that enables goodness to reconcile itself to 
them. 



VIII.— THE REDEEMER. 

Among things of highest certainty to us, are those 
to which our ideas of personality and essence corres- 
pond, and the radical difference between these two. 
And though we cannot define or explain them, the 
knowledge of them and of their difference from each 
other cannot but be assumed in common intellection 
and discourse ; nor can there be any justness of con- 
tinuous thinking or expression on subjects of great- 
est moment, without carefully distinguishing between 
them, so that nothing shall ever be predicated of one 
which is peculiar to the other. 

Of finite persons, so far as we know, each one has a 
distinct and a single personality proper to himself ; 
but personality in them may, in the same individual, 
be united to several essences or natures. Thus, the 
same man with one personality, is a compound of body 
and spirit, the essences of which are not only diverse, 
but immiscible. Of the Deity, whose essence is in- 
finite, the opposite of this has been revealed to us. 
He has but one Essence, but this dwells completely in 
three distinct Persons, from eternity and of necessity 
united, and so constituting one God. 

By that wisdom of the world, which with God is 
foolishness, the Tri-personality of the Supreme Being 
is rejected ; using, in doing so, its own absolute ignor- 
(244) 



THE BEDEEMEB, 245 

ance to deprive itself of knowledge of liigliest concern- 
ment, and thus giving a pre-envinent example of the 
Deceit and infatuation in which sin had its beginning, 
and by which it has strengthened and extended its 
dominion. 

In rejecting this sublime revelation, a sinful world 
virtually abolishes all hope for itself. It was the 
peculiarity as to the mode or constitution of the Divine 
Being, which this revelation announces, that enabled 
infinite Goodness, so to speak, to continue its course 
toward fallen man in the form of Mercy. Herein lay 
the ground of the possibility of its making tiie prere- 
quisite sacrifice. It was impossible for us to have 
known of ourselves what this sacrifice behooved to be ; 
but as it required to have a value satisfactory to 
Avenging Justice, or equivalent to that of the punish- 
ment of sin, according to its demerit, it is self-demon- 
strative that it could be made by no finite or created per- 
son. In the sphere of the finite there is no person compe- 
tent to make, or undertake to make it. However exalted 
or endowed, however eminent in rank or goodness, finite 
persons may be, they depend on the Infinite for what- 
ever they are and have ; and to deny or lose a sense 
of this dependence, would be to become atheistic, or 
make themselves gods. There is absurdity, not to say 
impiety, in the idea that such persons, unless already 
fallen into the delusiveness of sin, should tliink them- 
selves capable of more goodness than is already due 
from them to their Maker on their own account. How, 
then, shall they be able, or think themselves able, to 
make satisfaction for sin, or the want of goodness in 



246 TEE BEDEEMEJR. 

another ; mucli less in a whole race of creatures ? If, 
therefore, the sacrifice was required to be made by a 
Person, he must be a Divine one ; that is to say, a 
Person in the sphere, and having the essence of the 
Infinite ; and if there had been but one such Person, 
he must have been that one ; a necessity, as we shall 
see, involving another necessity, namely, that for a 
time there should be no Divine Person in the estate 
of glory proper to the Divine Being ; the idea of which 
is no less absurd and monstrous than that of blank 
atheism. 

Which of the Divine Persons should assume the un- 
dertaking was of necessity determinable only by them- 
selves. There was one of them called by various 
names, — -the Word, the Life, the only begotten Son of 
God,^by whom, in a special sense, though with con- 
currence of the others, all acts and operations of the 
Deity in the world and in its creation had been per- 
formed. On Him this work also was devolved, and 
by Him it was accomplished. 

Its accomplishment required of Him an infinite hu- 
miliation. He had to descend into the sphere of hu- 
manity, and to take humanity completely, its sinfulness 
alone excepted, into a personal union with His Divine 
Nature. His eternal Personality, divesting itself of 
the form proper to Him as Divine, was to appear 
thenceforth, for a human lifetime, in fashion as that of 
a man ; in which, by additional abasement, in all 
respects extreme. He had to finish His undertaking. 
In this descent from the rank of the Infinite, He could 
not cease Himself to be Infinite : God cannot undeify 



THE REDEEMER. 247 

Himself. Accordingly, in tlie descent, even down to 
its lowest depth, the honors due only to the Deity 
were still paid to Him ; as in its sequel. He showed 
Himself still Divine by Divine works of His own, and 
was also witnessed unto and sealed, as having coequal 
Divinity with themselves by the other Divine Persons. 
Nevertheless, except that He knew no sin, the measure 
of His humiliation was throughout without measure ; 
and, at its last stage especially, it was unsearchably 
strange and wonderful. In its process to this stage, 
He presents an example of wisdom in teaching, of self- 
denying beneficence, of patient endurance of tempta- 
tion and affliction, of meekness and self-composure 
under the greatest provocations, wherein His Divine- 
Human character is also resplendent with brightest 
glory to those who are competent to discern it. But 
now, a tragical scene occurs, which stands alone even 
in this wondrous history of God-man abasement. As 
to its direct causes, it is to us absolutely incomprehen- 
sible ; yet one fact sufficiently explains it. Having 
made Himself answerable to Eternal Justice for the 
sins of mankind ; their sins, in the language of Scrip- 
ture, were laid upon Him, to be avenged in His sacred 
person ; nor was He spared any, the least portion, of 
the infliction required of Him by that terrible justice. 
This infliction was not the same, — it could not have 
been the same, — which it would have been if it had 
been received by us in our persons ; but it was what 
only He, as uniting in Himself the finite with the in- 
finite, could have either sustained or received. It 
dealt with " Him who knew no sin," as if, to use in- 



248 THE REDEEMER. 

spired language, He ha:1 been " Sin itself/*^ the em- 
bodiment of whatever could be called sin. It ex- 
pressed itself in effects and demonstrations answerable 
to this representation. Not only in insult, mockery, 
scom'ging, crucifixion, from those for whom he suffered, 
but in prayers and supplications, with strong crying 
and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from 
death ; in a sweat, as it were, of great drops of blood, 
falling down to the ground ; in a loud outcry on the 
cross, in which He proclaimed Himself forsaken of 
God ; and, finally, in a preternatural death, succeeded 
by entombment in " the heart of the earth." These, 
attended by profoundly symbolical phenomena of 
nature, in heaven and earth, and the shades of death, 
are the interpreters to the world of what has been 
called emphatically The Passion of the Redeemer. 
They do not explain its psychology, or mode of pos- 
sibility, or how the finite and infinite could have the 
interagency which was involved in it ; but the know- 
ledge of this, which doubtless no finite mind is capable 
of receiving, was not necessary. The facts which 
God has made as ever living, ever present realities in 
the eyes of the world, are sufficient. It is enough 
that these facts, by the ordering of God, set forth, like 
the sun in the firmament, the great certainty they in- 
volve, namely, that one of the Divine Trinity, leaving 
His estate of glory with his coequals in Godhead, and 
assuming under His Divine Personality the nature of 
man, became the subject of such humiliation and suffer- 
ing as the facts attest — this was enough. The demon- 
stration could not be made greater that the satisfaction 



THE REDEEMER. 249 

to Justice was complete, the indignation of the Divine 
goodness against sin adequately revealed. 

There remains, however, another consideration 
which immensely increases the estimation of this doing 
of Divine Love. It is that of the Relationship of the 
God-man to the other Divine Persons. The eternally 
Three-one are in their unity eternally related to each 
other. They are so of necessity, even as they are of 
necessity united in the essence. And their inter-rela- 
tions are grounds of special affections and interagen- 
cies among them. As a fact, — a fact unexplained and 
doubtless unexplainable, — God has affirmed nothing 
concerning His Deity, not even His essential unity, 
more explicit than this. Especially, He has announced 
nothing more impressively, than that He who bore the 
sins of mankind was a Person of ineffable nearness and 
endearment to Himself. He calls Him His own. His 
only begotten Son. And, farther. He tells us, that 
this His Son, who offered Himself as a sacrifice for us, 
was His own gift to us. The essential coequality of 
this Person with the other Divine Persons, made it 
impossible that He should be given against His own 
desire ; but that desire presupposed, His Filial re- 
lationship to God, gave possibility to His being given 
of His Eternal Father, and the possibility became 
real. So that a complete statement of the subject re- 
quires the assertion, that in order that Mercy, in the 
fulness of its blessings, might be extended to mankind, 
God gave His own coequal Son, who Himself desired 
to be so given, that through a substitutionary sacrifice 
made by this Divine Person, the reign of Mercy might 
11* 



250 THE REDEEMER. 

be consistent with Justice, or be in harmony with all 
he Divine perfections. 

This is the Atonement — anticipated from the be- 
ginning, available as soon as man fell, accomplished in 
due time, — it lays a foundation for the throne and domi- 
nion of Mercy firmer and more enduring than the 
foundation of the heavens and the earth. 



IX.— THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 

Though man, by his first disobedience, subjected 
himself to the despotism of sin, he did not cease to be 
a free agent. He was free in that act of Tvilling, and 
he continued no less free afterwards. His will re- 
mained to him, with all the constitutional properties 
requisite to volition. He could not but will in ac- 
cordance with his desire, but he was under no compul- 
sion. There is no higher freedom — higher cannot be 
conceived — than that which he had : the power of 
willing, and opportunity to exercise it according to 
prevailing desire. It is, in itself, impossible to will 
without desire, or under no influence from former acts 
of willing ; or, after once acting, under no disposition 
to one act rather than another: And if so acting was 
the indispensable condition of freedom, there would be 
no freedom in the universe ; the Infinite Himself were 
not free, a predisposition to good volition being a ne- 
cessity of His Nature. 

Nevertheless, since by the immutable law of volition, 
the act of willing must follow desire, or the will be as 
the greatest apparent good, at the moment of its de- 
termination ; and since evil, at that moment, always 
has the appearance of good, if sin has command, the 
certainty remains absolute of man's willing in the ser- 
vice of sin, until its power to deceive be overcome. 

(351) 



252 THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 

Evil will ever seem best to him, when the act of will- 
ing is to have place. The greatest good will have the 
appearance of evil. Urgency of persuasion, objective 
appliance of whatever kind, can make no difference ; 
none, at least, in favor of the choice of good. There- 
fore Goodness, in order to become mercy to man, had 
more to do than to reveal the Divine indignation 
against sin, or make an atonement for it, as explained 
in the preceding number. It had to meet the further 
necessity of displacing the power of sin in man. It 
had to put out of its way a deep-rooted, subjective 
hindrance in the nature of man, as well as an objective 
one interposed by the Avenging justice of God, or by 
its own necessity of being consistent with itself, or of 
not so doing good, as to do evil on the whole, or fail 
of the greatest ultimate good. This necessity was 
upon it. How was it to be met? In ignorance of the 
condecencies, which, in truth, are necessities of the 
Divine activity, simple omnipotence or arbitrary will 
might have seemed sufficient for the purpose ; but, in 
fact, it was not. God, as God, the All and Ever Per- 
fect, could not so meet it. There was a possibility 
of meeting it, but the ground of this possibility, like 
that of forbearing to punish sin, lay not in the simple 
will or power, but in the Constitution of the Deity, as 
a Pluri-personal Being. This great peculiarity in the 
nature or constitution of the Godhead, ever an " of- 
fence" to the proud wisdom of the world, contains, in 
this respect also, the only foundation of hope for man. 
According to God's revelation of Himself to us in His 
Word, the economy, if wc may so speak, of the agencies 



THE WORK OF THE 8PIR1T. 253 

of the Godhead, tlie order of operations among the dis- 
tinct Persons of the Trinity, an order depending on 
that of their subsistence, — ascribes the beginning of 
all Divine works to the First Person 5 their immedi- 
ate production, subsistence, and sustentation, to the 
Second ; and all concluding, completing, and perfect- 
ing acts, to the Third. With reference to the heavens 
and the earth (Gen. i. 2, Job xxvi. 13); to man, after 
his creation (Gen. ii. 7, Job xxxiii. 4); to the furnish- 
ing of man with extraordinary virtues and gifts for 
special works, including even the God Man Himself 
(Judges iii. 10, Zach. iv. 6, Is. Ixi. 1), the agency in 
this last sphere, belongs specifically to the Spirit. It 
is not for us to know the reason, the fact is enough, — 
a fact having its basis in the Nature of the Deity, and so 
equalizing the necessity for the agency of the Spirit 
in order to displace the power of sin in man, with that 
of the Divine existence itself. 

As it was the work of the Second Divine Person, 
then, to make the Atonement, so this other work with- 
out which the Atonement would have been made in 
vain, was the province of the Third. The two works 
were correlated to each other ; the last depending on 
the first, as its indispensable condition. It was per- 
formed in the world, as was every work of Mercy, be- 
fore the Atonement was actually made ; but as it was 
needful (John xvi. 7) that the Atonement should be 
made before the Spirit could come in the fulness of His 
peculiar power, so was it, by virtue of the Atonement, 
anticipated, that He previously exercised His dis- 
tinctive office. (Rev. xiii. 8.) 



254 THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT. 

His operation, in accomplishing it, is generally two- 
fold, objective and subjective, outward and inward; 
and these, though not invariably connected, are so re- 
lated to each other, that the latter seldom, if ever, has 
place, in adult age, if the other is wanting. The rela- 
tion is not that of cause and effect, nor does it in the 
least interfere with the sovereignty of the Spirit in the 
inward operation ; but the antecedence of the outward 
is, ordinarily, at least, indispensable to the performance 
of the other. With reference to the displacement of 
the power of sin by the inward operation, its chief end 
is to give a just impression of the character of that 
power, the fact of its all-ruinous delusiveness, its dire 
malignity, its utter renouncement of reason, of a pure 
conscience, of true self-interest, of self-respect, of the 
just exercise of every sentiment of humanity, as well 
as of the Supreme authority of infinite rectitude and 
goodness. It seeks to rouse up every part of man^s 
rational, moral, godlike nature, — to make everything 
great and noble in man, insurgent and rebellious, 
against the deep debasement under which sin is hold- 
ing him as its willing, most wretched captive. There 
is nothing, except sin itself, to which it does not direct 
its appeals, with the certainty, in so far as they are 
heeded, of a favorable response. There is in these ap- 
peals a didactic, argumentative, benign, suasory force, 
— that of the inspired Word of God, quick, powerful, 
sharper than a two-edged sword, a searcher of the 
thoughts and intents of the heart, — not to be resisted 
by anything simply human in man. And while they 
cannot prevail with reference to the main purpose, — 



THE WOBK OF THE SPIBIT. 255 

deliverance from the tyranny of sin, the effect, exclu- 
sively, of the Spirit's inward agency, — they can, in a 
sense, approximate this ; they can make the yoke of 
sin too grievous to be borne ; they can give a keen, 
intense conviction of the cruelty, the enormous wrong 
and iniquity, the turpitude and hatefulness of its bon- 
dage ; of absolute helplessness also, or the abolition of 
all hope of self-deliverance ; they can elicit longing, 
sighing, imploring outcries for aid ; and so, peradven- 
ture, make it proper and suitable for the Spirit to do, 
what otherwise it might not seem meet, and there- 
fore not possible for Him to do, — penetrate, with His 
inworking energy, to the innermost recess of nature, 
where sin hath its seat, and supersede its dominion by 
His own, — the Supreme ascendency of Truth and Holi- 
ness, over desire and consequent determinations of the 
will. 



X. — MEDIATION. 

The Atonement and the Work of the Spirit did not 
comprehend the whole of the Plan of Mercy to man ; 
these were connected with another Provision of high- 
est peculiarity. 

It was not possible that the Divine Person, who was 
made flesh and died for our sins, should have remained 
under the power of death. (Acts ii. 24.) But if it 
had been possible it could not have proved a reality, 
without losing the end of His incarnation and death. 
The Atonement would have been completed, but it 
would have been without fruit. If we are reconciled 
to God by the death of His Son, it is by His life that 
we are saved. (Rom. v. 10.) Moreover, the Spirit 
could not have been given if Jesus had not been glori- 
fied. (John vii. 89 ; xiv. 7.) But immensely more 
was necessary — a vast sequel of administrative agency 
over whatsoever was to come to pass in the history of 
the world. The Royal authority over the universe 
must be committed to Christ, and exercised by Him 
until the end of all things. (Phil. ii. 9, 10 ; 1 Cor. 
XV. 24.) 

Even before His death He had Lordship over all 
things. Life, death, demons, angels, the wind and 
seas, nature in all its spheres, took orders from Him. 
Nay, the Lord Jehovah, the Ruling God under the 

(256) 



MEDIATION. 251 

Old Testament, was the God-man of the New Testa- 
ment. But it was not until He had risen from the 
dead and ascended to the Father, that His solemn en- 
thronement over the universe took place. That event 
was reserved as the Testimonial of God's estimation 
of His infinite self-abasement for man's sake. (Com- 
pare Phil. ii. 6-11 with Psalms xxiv. 7-10.) It had 
its reason, its ground of possibility in that self abase- 
ment : He could not otherwise have been exalted. 
As a Divine Person, simply, the supremacy over all 
things was His already. It was originally and neces- 
sarily His ; He could not have divested Himself of it. 
But after uniting in Himself the Human Nature to the 
Divine, and exchanging the Form of God for the form 
of aservant. He became, in this Theanthropic, Divine- 
Human character, capable of exaltation ; and God, at 
the proper time, made Him supreme Monarch of the 
whole creation. He gave Him this infinite dominion, to 
the end that the object of His death might be Fecured. 
(Eph. i. 22.) It was necessary that He should have it ; 
it comprehends the potentiality, the possibility, of the 
full accomplishment of this object. (Eph. iv. 10.) In 
the fact itself of His receiving it, in the evidence here- 
by afforded of the infinite value of the Atonement, 
there was a potential bearing on the attainment of this 
object ; but His having it was beyond this influential, 
and even necessary, in manifold respects. It was 
needed to perpetuate the virtue of the Atonement. 
There were, it is true, provisions on earth for this pur- 
pose ; but there was a necessity for this Heavenly pro- 
vision also ; without it all earthly arrangements would 



258 MEDIATION. 

have been of no avail. A vitalizing, energizing power 
was demanded to keep these arrangements from be- 
coming unfruitful, perhaps even forgotten and lost ; 
and it was only the Theanthropic kingdom that could 
supply this power. (Eph. i. 20-23.) But there was 
a necessity for Divine influences beyond the virtue of 
the Atonement, however perfectly conserved and act- 
ualized. The specific end of the Atonement was to 
remove the obstacle which our sin, as incurring the 
displeasure of God, had put in the way of mercy. (Ro- 
mans iv. 25.) A further influence was required to 
fulfil the designs of mercy ; one, namely, from the 
Resurrection of Christ. (Rom. iv. 25, second clause.) 
And more than even this was necessary : for neither 
the death of Christ nor His resurrection from the 
dead, by virtue of which we are justified, sufficed to 
complete our salvation. After justification we are 
still compassed by infirmity, and exposed to tempta- 
tion and to all the forms of earthly affliction and sor- 
row, and are incessantly falling into new sin, so that 
if no further provision had been made for us the for- 
mer ones would have failed. The additional exigen- 
cies were met, but they were not otherwise to be 
met than by the Theanthropic elevation of Christ. 
For the way of mercy now, as in its former stages, 
might not be arbitrary ; the requisite aid could not 
come to us, from simple Will, though clothed with 
Omnipotence. The ability to aid us as we need 
had its ground in the qualifications and offices which 
belong to the God-man, as such, in His exalted estate. 
To his possession of these it was necessary that He 



MEDIATION. 259 

should have had a personal experience of our trials, 
in the days of His flesh ; been touched with a feeling 
of our infirmities ; tempted in all points like as we are, 
though without sin ; and then, having been " made 
higher than the heavens," and assumed the Throne of 
Universal Empire, it was further necessary that He 
should avail Himself of the exercise of an August 
Function, of which we are yet to make mention. Only 
on this condition could He enable Himself to succor 
us adequately in our temptations. (Hebrews vii. 25, 
26, compared with ii. 18.) Why it was so we do not 
fully comprehend ; it is enough that we know the fact, 
with its necessity and its sufficiency. The certainty, 
the possibility even, of our salvation to the uttermost, 
could have had no foundation out of the Theanthropic 
Reign of Christ. 

But a full view has not yet been taken of the ground 
of necessity for this Reign. While it was required 
for the completion of our salvation, there were sub- 
sidiary and ulterior purposes which could not be 
otherwise answered. It was necessary that He should 
have all power in heaven and earth to carry forward 
His great undertaking through the coming ages of 
the world, and to bring the history of the world to its 
predestined end. Supreme authority over all nations 
was required. (Matt, xxviii. 18-20.) He must be 
the Prince of the kings and the kingdoms of the 
earth. (Rev. i. 5.) Rebellious empires were to be 
overthrown ; the powers of darkness, the gates of hell 
were to be vanquished ; Satan was to be cast out and 
consigned to the bottomless pit ; death, the last enemy, 



260 MEDIATION. 

was to be destroyed ; the creature was to be delivered 
from the bondage of corruption ; the heavens and the 
earth were to be renewed ; the peace of the universe 
was to be conquered. The book of the Apocalypse 
gives the shadows of the things which are compre- 
hended in. the immense system of agencies and changes 
over which it was necessary that a government, sure 
of success, should be maintained. What breadths of 
time, what cycles of civilization, what revolutions of 
empire, what conflicts of kingdoms, what powers of 
good and evil, visible and invisible, working with and 
counterworking one another — even down to the end 
of the world ! On no shoulder but that of the exalted 
and enthroned God-man could the government rest 
which the vast exigence required. Infinite Goodness, 
pursuing justly and wisely its end, could not dispense 
with the Theanthropic Kingdom. 

Of this kingdom the grand distinction is that it is 
Mediatorial or Priestly. The titles God-man and 
Mediator are of the same significance. The monarch 
of this kingdom is styled " a Priest upon his Throne." 
(Zech. vi. 13.) The regal and sacerdotal functions are 
combined in His unparalleled supremacy. It is through 
the virtue of a Sacrifice that He exercises the gov- 
ernment over the world. All royal decrees, com- 
mands, distributions are fulfilled through the concur- 
rent exercise of a great High-Priesthood — the presen- 
tation of a Sacrifice. The Sacrifice is the same that 
He presented when, through the Eternal Spirit, He 
offered Himself without spot on the Cross. The pre- 
sentation now is through Intercession. It implies no 



MEDIATION, 261 

necessity, it does not admit of oral or formal suppli- 
cations ; it consists in the presence, in Heaven, of such 
a one as He is — the Eternal Son of God, as a Lamb 
which has been slain — with those scars of infinite 
honor in His adorable Person, which He received at 
His immolation. (Rev. v. 6.) These ever-glorious 
scars, the prints of the nails in His hands and feet, and 
the cleft in His side, were all conspicuous when He 
ascended the Throne ; they have continued to be so ; 
they constitute the Intercession — the comprehensive 
virtue and strength of the Mediatorial Kingdom. 

The duration of this kingdom is limited. It will 
end in the end of the world. The necessity for it will 
then have ceased ; the purpose for which it was estab- 
lished will have been accomplished. The God-Man 
will surrender His delegated dominion to God, even 
the Father. (1 Cor. xv. 24.) The Mediatorial will 
be merged into the Immediatorial kingdom, and the 
Son himself be subject to Him who put all things un- 
der Him. The Incarnate Deity will remain incarnate ; 
in His Divinity coequal and coeternal still, as of 
necessity He ever must be, with the other Divine Per- 
sons ; but as clothed in our nature, and as everlasting 
Head of His Body the Church, He will be officially 
subordinate to God ; and thenceforth God, as such, 
the Eternal Three-One, be all in all: All in all, in 
the delighted consciousness of every creature through- 
out the Realm of goodness and blessedness ; in the 
exercise of government all in all, likewise, to the 
apprehension and everlasting torment of unholy beings 
in the prison of despair. 



XI.— JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE. 

Man, in his first estate, being sinless or innocent, was 
legally just in the sight of God. Perfectly obedient 
to the precept of the law, he was not obnoxious to its 
penalty. By sinning he changed his relations to law. 
Might he by any means be put back into his original 
relations ? Might he again become legally just ? 

Innocent again, he certainly cannot become. The 
same person cannot be both criminal and innocent. If 
he has committed an offence, he may repent of it, he 
may be forgiven ; but the fact remains ; character and 
condition may change, but what has been, cannot cease 
to have been ; it may be atoned for, it cannot be abol- 
ished. 

The law, then, cannot justify one who has trans- 
gressed it, if to justify means to make or pronounce in- 
nocent. The restoration of man, therefore, in respect 
of justification, taking this term in its strict or legal 
sense, is impossible. No arbitrary act of will, no im- 
putation of another^s innocence or jnerit, though it be 
the merit of condigmiy, can effect the legal justification 
of one who has broken the law. This merit can by no 
possibility be made his, any more than the desert of 
punishment can be made the desert of reward. The 
question whether a sinner may be justified again, in 
the sense in which he was justified before he trans- 

(262) 



JUSTIFICATION BY QBAOE. 263 

gressed the law, is, by his having transgressed it, an- 
swered in the negative. 

Is it proper, then, to apply the term justification 
to a state in relation to law, into which a sinner may 
by any means be brought ? The fact that the term is 
not only so applied in Scripture, but, in this applica- 
tion of it, intensely emphasized and insisted upon, su- 
persedes this question. The propriety, if not the in- 
dispensableness of using this term, in this application 
of it, is not a subject of legitimate inquiry or doubt. 
And the question, doubtless, never would have arisen 
— there would have been no place for it, even in 
thought — if just views had always been taken of the 
relation to law in which the Atonement puts a believ- 
er — one who avails himself of its benefit. This rela- 
tion, though not that precisely which obedience to the 
law constitutes, is at least of equivalent virtue. It 
makes it unnecessary on any account to punish the be- 
liever, by answering all the ends of his punishment ; 
and exemption from this is all that, in justice, obedi- 
ence to the law can claim from God. For aught be- 
yond this, God, in justice, can be in debt to no creature. 
Creatures owe God their perfect obedience ; but He 
owes and can owe them nothing, beyond the negative 
good of not doing them an injury. All that He does 
for them, more than this, is the fruit of His goodness, 
not of that justice which must acknowledge and pay a 
debt, or become injustice. There is no creature to whom 
continuance in being is desirable, who is not indebted 
to the Divine goodness even for this. Everything, in 
such a creature's existence, except in so far as he may 



264 JUSTIFIGAIION BY GRACE. 

have harmed himself. — everything in so far as God's 
dealing with him is concerned, has been simply good, 
up to this moment ; and if from this moment he should 
cease to be, there would be no abatement of that good- 
ness of which his life, from its beginning, has been 
full, and no ground of complaint against God, so far 
as regards this creature's history. If the Power which 
made, and has been incessantly upholding him, should 
withdraw Itself, and leave him to pass back into noth- 
ness out of which it brought him, it would do him no 
wrong ; nor might any one call It to account. God is 
answerable to Himself, and to Himself only, for the 
exercises of His Almighty power. Should He make 
new worlds, and, after a time, unmake them, who can 
say that He would not be doing right? God owes it 
to Himself to bless His obedient creatures ; it becomes 
Him as the All-Perfect, the All-Good, thus to deal with 
them ; if He has given them His promise, self-regard 
requires Him to fulfil it. But in respect to their per 
sonal desert or claim, its limit has been defined ; they 
have, and can have, no merit of condignity beyond the 
negative one, not to be dealt with injuriously : a merit 
of this kind, a claim on justice, beyond that, is incon- 
sistent with the very idea of the Deity as the Fountain 
of all being, and all good, and with the necessary rela- 
tions between Him and His dependent creatures. (See 
Kom. xi. 35, 2>Q.) 

Now, so far as regards this claim, though the Atone- 
ment cannot create it, on the part of a believer, or 
take away from him the desert of punishment, yet it 
can and does take away all ground or reason for the 



JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE. 265 

infliction of punishment ; and thus put him virtually in 
that relation to law, which he would have been in, if 
he had not broken it. It cannot be said that he would 
be dealt with unjustly, or as he does not deserve to be, 
if he should be punished j but his punishment would be 
unnecessary, or to no end ulterior to itself; it would 
be punishment for punishment's sake, which, however 
merited, cannot be executed where goodness bears 
sway. The Atonement offers itself as a substitute for 
punishment; as a full equivalent for it, and thus, ex- 
cepting only the believer's ill-desert, as availing to 
form the relation to law, in respect to him, which 
would have existed if he had not been disobedient to 
it. And, as his justification, in that case, would have 
been simply and only a recognition of him as unamen- 
able to punishment, that is, virtually, a justification 
which he obtains through the Atonement — it renders 
him, on the ground of a perfect equivalent or substi- 
tute for punishment, unamenable and unexposed to a 
penal affliction. 

It may be thought that justification, in this view of 
it, is nothing more than pardon ; but the difference is 
fundamental : pardon or forgiveness is included in 
justification (see Rom. iv. 6-8.) ; but pardon may be 
arbitrary, or, at least, for a reason, different from an 
atonement or a satisfaction to punitive justice. In jus- 
tification there is this satisfaction, and it is precisely 
this which discriminates the idea of justification from 
that of mere mercy in whatever form. In order 
to constitute the justification of a sinner, there must 
be a pardon, but to this must be added an Atonement 
12 



266 JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE. 

as its ground — a provision, the virtue of which is to 
put him who has the advantage of it in the same rela- 
tion, to the law, so far as regards the reasons for pun- 
ishment, as obedience to the law constitutes and im- 
plies. 

It has been thought that the term justification is not 
applicable to one's state in relation to law, unless this 
include something more than unamenableness to pun- 
ishment ; additional to this, he must have a legal title 
to eternal life. But this is not included even in a 
strictly legal justification : obedience itself confers no 
such title, as has been said already. A person legally 
justified, as long as he lives without sinning, cannot be 
punished : God, moreover, may owe it to Himself as 
good and the friend of goodness, to show such a per- 
son favor, perhaps eminent favor ; but if he does, it is 
not a debt due to him from God in strict justice ; he 
has no claim on his Maker, on this or any ground, 
even for one moment's continuance in being. 

They who say that justification includes a legal title 
to salvation, give the Atonement the virtue of confer- 
ring this title. But if the existence of the title be an 
impossibility, the Atonement cannot have the virtue 
they ascribe to it. We have seen that a legal title, 
even to exemption from punishment where it has been 
incurred, is an impossibility. As to this, even a merit 
of condignity^ a claim in law or justice, in one who has 
incurred it by transgression, is an absurdity, a contra- 
diction in terms. What place, then, is there for the 
idea of a legal title to eternal life ? And for what 
reason were such a title to be desired if it were a pos- 



JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE. 267 

sibility ? Or what advantage could it give its pos- 
sessor which he may not have without it, unless it be 
an advantage to be free of the Divine goodness, and to 
have self-merit as the measure of one's happiness ? A 
title to anything in justice, or as a debt, is not a con- 
dition of receiving good from God : He requires no 
such title ; He is already more than willing, for the 
sake of the Atonement, to confer the highest favors on 
those to whom the only debt due from Him is eternal 
death. The Atonement itself was required, not from 
a parsimony of goodness, but rather that the way of 
goodness, on the largest scale, might be open and un- 
obstructed. And the Atonement itself was the fruit of 
goodness, and of all its fruits unspeakably greatest. 
From first to last the salvation of man — the Atone- 
ment, forgiveness, eternal life, for the Atonement's 
sake — ^has goodness, not justice, not obligation, as its 
fountaiu. The whole comes, it is true, through the 
Atonement — the immediate producing cause of the 
whole. It is for Christ's sake, for the sake of His infi- 
nite sacrifice. His obedience unto death. His personal 
intercession, that God exalts the believer to the honors 
and felicities of His everlasting kingdom ; treats him, 
to use the language of Scripture, as if he were " the 
righteousness of God ;" justifies him with a justifica- 
tion which makes him a son and an heir of God, a 
joint-heir with Christ : But while this justification has 
its ground in the work of Christ, it is not on that ac- 
count the less gratuitous, the less independent of a 
claim in justice, the less an act of pure and absolute 
grace. The Biblical statement of the doctrine of a 



268 JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE. 

sinner's justification is nowhere more complete or pre- 
cise than in Romans iii. 24 : " Being justified feeely 
BY His geace theough the eedemption that is in 
C HEIST Jesus." 



XII.— FAITH. 

There are two senses in whicli tlie epithet spiritual 
may be applied to man : as signifying either the im- 
material or spiritual part of his nature, or a certain 
state or quality of the latter. In the former meaning 
it distinguishes the soul from the body ; in the other 
it distinguishes regenerate from unregenerate man. 
An unregenerate man, even in respect to his immateri- 
ality or spirit, is called carnal (1 Cor. iii. 3 ; Col. ii. 
18) ; a regenerate man, as such, is called spiritual. 
That which is born of the Spirit is spirit ; that is, has 
a spiritual nature like that of the Holy Spirit of whom 
he is born. And this new spiritual nature which comes 
of the second birth, has a spiritual understanding, or 
power of spiritual discernment (Rom. viii. 6, 7 ; Col. i. 
9 ; 1 Cor. ii. 15) ; " A new foundation laid in the na- 
ture of the soul for a new kind of exercises of the 
natural understanding."^ Hence the explanation of 
man's deliverance from that moral deceptiveness or 
power of infatuation in which sin begins, and by which 
it maintains its dominion within him. It is in the ex- 
ercise of this new power or principle of nature that 
the spell of sin is broken, that good and evil are again 
discerned in their proper characters, and the reign of 
rectitude or goodness established. 

* President Edwards. 

(369) 



270 FAITH. 

Now that which is objectively correlative to this 
new principle, toward which it acts, and from which 
it takes its impressions, is not a direct lyreseniation of 
things, but a representation of them by means of state- 
ment or testimony, namely, the Word of God — the 
outward witness of the Spirit. In respect to the 
things themselves, God is a Testifier or Affirmant, 
apart from whose Word there is no possibility of our 
knowing them, no evidence to us of their truth or ex- 
istence. If they become realities to us, if they impress 
themselves upon us, they do so no otherwise than 
through the medium of this Word, which has this in- 
fluence only as it is accredited or believed. This 
accounts for the application of the term Faith to that 
use or exercise of the spiritual understanding by which 
we are said to discern or know these things. 

It is not possible to give a strict definition of Faith. 
Like vision or hearing it can no otherwise be under- 
stood than by its function or what it does. In regard 
to this the Biblical assertion is, that Faith is what 
makes the contents of the Divine Word as present 
realities to the believer, (Heb. xi. 1). These contents — 
simple assertions — are matters of as perfect certitude 
to him as things which he sees, hears, or handles ; and 
it is his faith which gives them this certitude. And 
the reason why it does this is, that that wliich attests 
them is what it is, the Word of God. He has no 
conception, no knowledge of them, except what this 
Word gives him ; they surpass his power of compre- 
hension ; many of them are futurities, which only Om- 
niscience can know, and only Omnipotence can actu- 



FAITH. 271 

alize; and were they not declared by God Himself, 
it would be simple credulity or folly to believe them. 
But because, and only because, the Mouth of God hath 
spoken them, they are to that new power of discern- 
ment which belongs to him as a regenerate or spiritual 
person, as certain and real as objects of sight are to 
the eye. 

What gives them this reality is, the correlation be- 
tween this new spiritual sense and God Himself as ob- 
jective to it. It is this sense which makes the Deity 
in His proper nature a reality to man. The world is 
a revelation of the glory of God (Ps. xix. 1, Rom. i. 
20) ; but it is such in effect only to a spiritual mind. 
The unregenerate are without God in the world (Eph. 
ii. 12). Even the inspired Word of God is no revela- 
tion to them (1 Cor. ii. 14). Being destitute of spiritual 
sense or understanding, there is no possibility to them 
of the spiritual knowledge of God any more than there 
is of the intellectual knowledge of Him to irrational 
creatures. But let one have this new sense, and God, 
in the glory of His nature, becomes the only reality ; 
all being, all goodness, all else is comparatively less 
than nothing to Him. What then — as a ground or 
reason of certitude to him,— what is there in the uni- 
verse superior or equal to the Word of this all-glorious 
Being ? Is it cause for wonder, that whatever this 
Word contains is as obviously true and real to the soul 
of a believer, as the existence of the world is to his 
natural consciousness ? 

Now, among the contents of this Word, high and 
transcendent as the sun in the svstem which he il- 



272 FAITH. 

lumines, is the scheme of Justification by grace. It is 
of course correspondently distinguished among the 
spiritual apprehensions of a regenerate man. His in- 
effable complacency in it, his joyous acceptance of it, 
his absolute reliance upon it, for his own personal justi- 
fication, is, of course, a fact, a moral necessity. Thus 
it comes to pass, that he is actually justified by it ; 
and because the event occurs through an exercise of 
faith, it is ascribed to Faith as its productive cause. 
He is said to be justified by his faith. The connect- 
ing medium between him and the scheme of justifica- 
tion, is spoken of, by metonomy, as if it had in itself a 
justifying virtue. It is said, indeed, to be imputed to 
him, for righteousness ; as if it were equivalent, at 
least, to a complete obedience of the law. The ex- 
planation has been given. It is not that faith is this 
in itself ; it would not be this, even if it were perfect. 
The only substitute for obedience, or the righteousness 
of the law, is the Atonement — " the righteousness of 
God," (Eom. i. 17 ; iii. 21, 22) ; but whereas it is 
through the instrumentality of faith, that this righteous- 
ness becomes available to justification, so the instru- 
ment is put for its object, and is imputed or accounted 
as if it were this in reality. 

The function of faith is not restricted to justification. 
From first to last, it is, on our part, the factor, the 
working power in our salvation. Next to the influence 
of tlie indwelling Spirit, it is the prime agent in the 
production of character, the perfecting of inherent 
righteousness in the justified. In all its acts, the first 
included, — that in which it justifies us, — it is a van- 



FAITH. 273 

qiiislier of evil, a purifier of the heart, a former of the 
imao-e of Christ within us. The same faith which ap- 
propriates justifying grace, accomplishes the whole, 
and does this in the selfsame kind and mode of 
activity. It sanctifies precisely as it justifies us. In 
itself, an exercise of spiritual understanding or dis- 
cernment terminating on its proper objects, the con- 
tents of Scripture, it gives these objects a formative 
influence on the soul, and moulds the character and 
life in conformity to them. Its efficacy is not from 
itself, but from the revelations of the Word of God, 
or more strictly from God Himself, as discerned by 
means of them. It is therefore, in a sense, a Divine 
efficacy. The Word of God gives Faith, a use as it 
were of the Divine attributes. It sees light in God's 
light, is wiser than the ancients, has an unction from 
the Holy One whereby it knows all things, looks into 
the future, sees the fulfilment of the prophecies, the 
second advent of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, 
the judgment of the world, the new heavens and 
earth, the end of the righteous and the wicked : The 
whole is reality to Faith. Moreover, it can do all 
things, remove mountains, quench the violence of fire, 
subdue kingdom:^, overcome the world. It can com- 
mand whatever it will ; ask and receive what it will ; 
fill itself with all the fulness of God : Nothing is im- 
possible to it : So it is written in the Word of God — 
that Word which to Faith is as God Himself. Of 
course, it is to be taken in a consistency with what- 
ever else that Word contains : for its contents are a 
unit, each cognate and co-organized with every other 
12* 



274 FAITE. 

and with the whole ; but it is not hereby deprived of 
its own proper significance, a significance not dimin- 
ished but increased in value by its organic relations, 
and not to be misapprehended by Faith. 

Three conclusions follow : In the first place, that 
the first concern of a believer, is to have his faith 
always in lively and vigorous exercise. Only let him 
lelieve. In proportion to the measure of his faith will 
be the measure of his attainment in personal virtue or 
conformity to Christ ; the measure of his good works 
or usefulness in the world ; the measure of his meet- 
ness for the blessedness of heaven. And, that he may 
be mature and strong in faith, it is necessary, in the 
next place, that he keep the principle of faith, the 
spiritual sense of which faith is an exercise in its nor- 
mal condition ; in order to do which, thirdly, the 
chief prerequisite is, that he grieve not the indwelling 
Spirit of God, the author and vitalizer of this principle 
and of all its activity. This last practically includes 
the others ; they will not, cannot be wanting, when 
the Spirit is not grieved ; and therefore this precept, 
" grieve not, quench not the Spirit," may be propounded 
as the summary or compend of all his concern. 



XIII.— CHARACTER OF BELIEVERS. 

The chief excellence of the good is in themselves, 
not in their works ; in their character, not in their 
manifestations of it. However high their estimation 
in respect of the latter, it is as nothing compared with 
that of their inherent excellence. The revealed glory 
of the Deity, which fills the world with its effulgence, 
is but a faint ray of the immanent perfection of His 
Nature. But there is a distinction, a higher and a 
lower, in inherent excellence itself The spiritual is 
superior to the natural, the moral to the constitutional. 
The latter, indeed, is but in order to the former, from 
its subordinate relation to which it takes its highest 
value. It is the chief glory of the Divine attributes, 
that they are all, if we may so speak, in the service of 
Love, the essence and sum of moral rectitude or good- 
ness. 

In the ground of our justification by grace, there is 
no place for any righteousness or moral excellence of 
ours ; and there is no necessity for it. The Atone- 
ment is all sufficient for its purpose, without addition 
from us. It were, moreover, offering the highest 
affront to infinite excellence ; it were arrogating a 
justifying virtue to that which needs to be justified ; 
it were bringing guilt to assist in justifying the guilty ; 
it were seeking to combine pollution with a purity, in 



276 CHAEAGTEU OF BELIEVERS. 

the presence of whicli " the heavens are not clean," to 
attempt making an addition to it : An iniquity too 
common among men, and not less perilous and hurtful 
than common. 

But it is not to be hence concluded, that personal 
righteousness or moral excellence, on our part, may be 
dispensed with in our justification, or that we may be 
justified by grace, while still unjust in ourselves, or 
disobedient to the law. Justification allows no inver- 
sion of the scale of excellence ; no place for the idea 
that character is less valuable than condition, or that 
personal goodness is unessential to the favor of God. 
Justification, on the contrary, is itself in order to a 
good character ; of which, the germ is already in us 
when it takes place, and the full maturity and perfec- 
tion already provided for and secured. In the act of 
justifying us, God begins the fulfilment of a scheme 
of agency, each part of which is interconnected with 
the whole, and with every other part. In its time and 
order, the presence of no part can be wanting. The 
scheme is a unit. The first part anticipates the last. 
Whom He justifies, them He sanctifies, and, in due 
time, He also glorifies. 

While, therefore, justification and personal virtue 
are distinct, they are inseparable from each other. 
The former, a single act, is already complete ; the 
latter, a gradual formation, is also sure of eventual 
completion. Simultaneously with the moment of justi- 
fication, the Holy Spirit begins His appropriate func- 
tion within us. It is through this beginning that we 
meet the indispensable condition of our justification. 



CHARACTER OF BELIEVEB8. 277 

Having already entered our perverted nature, the 
Spirit regenerates it, renews it, assimilates it to His 
own ; a;nd thus delivering it from the dominion of sin, 
giving truth and falsehood, good and evil, their just 
appearances again, making old things to pass away 
and all thiugs to become new to us, He evokes our 
complacency in the glorious plan of justification by 
grace, as set before us in the inspired Word, so that 
we joyfully adopt and accept it as our own. Nor does 
He rest here. He has come into us, as into His tem- 
ple, His everlasting habitation, out of which He is 
never more to depart. Henceforth the supreme do- 
minion within us is that of rectitude. Our reason, 
our conscience, our intelligence, our affections, our acts 
of willing, our spirit, our habits and ways of life, are 
inviolably consecrated to personal virtue. Such is the 
security for good character in the justified. It is as 
sufficient for its purpose, as the Atonement is for our 
justification before God. 

For substance, personal righteousness, or moral ex- 
cellence, is universally the same ; the same in heaven 
and on earth, in God and the angels, in man before his. 
fall and after his restoration. But like intelligence 
and physical life, it is modified by its surroundings, 
the external agencies which exert themselves upon it. 
In respect to justified man, these are wondrously 
distinctive and peculiar. The mode of his justification, 
as an objective power, has an influence upon him to 
which there is no parallel, and which is necessarily 
foreign and strange to others. In the reversal of his 
doom to eternal death ; in the obliteration of his 



278 CHARACTER OF BELIEVERS. 

countless impurities and offences ; in the immeasurable, 
all-amazing contrast between what he was, and what 
he has become ; and above all, in the Great Propitia- 
tion through which he is justified, there are motives, 
elements of purity, of which he alone can be conscious, 
and such as cannot but give him a transcendent 
peculiarity of personal character. 

But there is yet another demand for peculiarity. 
The plan of justifying grace comprehends our confor- 
mity to an unparalleled pattern or type of personal 
virtue ; even of that self-same type, by the exercise of 
which the Atonement was made, the way for our justi- 
fication by grace prepared. After the very example 
of that righteousness through the virtue of which we 
are justified, we ourselves are required to become 
righteous. The character of Christ is to be produced 
in us. That very stamp or distinction of righteous- 
ness which he displayed in His humiliation and death 
on our behalf, we ourselves are to bear. The same 
mind is to be in us which was also in Him when, being 
in the Form of God and equal with God, He emptied 
Himself, and took upon Him the Form of a servant, 
and was made in the likeness of man ; and being 
found in fashion as a man, humbled Himself, and be- 
came obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross 
(Phil. ii. 5-8). In making the Atonement Christ was 
alone ; no creature could take part with Him in that. 
But in the spirit in which He performed that work, 
the character so strange and peculiar which He dis- 
played in performing it, we are to be like Him, pre- 
cisely and perfectly like Him — conformed to Him with- 



CHABAGTER OF BELIEVERS. 279 

out exception or reserve. This conformity on our 
part — elemental at first, and at last complete — is the 
true exponent or significance of the condition of our 
being justified by His atoning death ; and this not by 
an arbitrary arrangement, but by the requisition of 
essential rectitude. We should be without the prin- 
ciple of personal virtue if we should be found wanting 
in this conformity ; if the same love in kind, where- 
with He loved us when He died for our sins had no place 
in our hearts ; nay, if it did not actually reproduce His 
character in us. When the Apostle speaks of his 
being crucified with Christ, of his being made conform- 
able to the death of Christ, of his bearing about in 
his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life 
also of Jesus might be manifest in his body, he does 
but give himself as a specimen of the character which 
is proper and requisite in all who are justified by 
grace. This mode of justification demands such a 
character, and virtue itself is disowned where the 
demand is not met. 

On no point is Biblical teaching more full and im- 
pressive than on this — the essential identity in charac- 
ter between Christ and ourselves. Kecur to our 
Lord^s frequent discourses on it to His disciples : re- 
cur especially to the prayer which He offered on their 
behalf before His Passion, the great burden of which 
was this very thing : call to mind the declaration that 
God has predestinated us to be conformed to the image 
of His Son : study the meaning of the Scripture where 
it calls us the brethren of Christ, and Him the First- 
born among many brethren, and makes us members 



280 GHABACTER OF BELIEVERS. 

of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, and 
identifies us with Him, in His death, His burial. His 
resurrection. His ascension, and His glory in Heaven: 
Mark attentively the Biblical representation of the 
Spirit's method of working in sanctifying us : how He 
ever keeps the image of Christ before us j takes of 
the things of Christ and shows them to us ; changes 
us into His likeness more and more, from glory to 
glory ; forms Him within us the hope of glory, and 
ceases not until our resemblance to Him is perfect and 
entire, wanting nothing. It is not simply virtue or 
righteousness that is needed, but that mode or fashion 
of it of which the only example, in this or any world, 
is that of the God-man our Saviour. 

Such then is that peculiarity of character or inherent 
righteousness, which belongs to those who are justified 
by grace. It is individual and unique. It has no 
parallel, no similitude, among men or angels. As to 
their subjective virtue, angels are not altogether what 
they were before they knew the depth to which the 
Divine Goodness could descend in the form of mercy 
to man. The manifestations of this mercy cannot but 
modify and immeasurably enhance the virtue and con- 
sequently the happiness of the universe. But justified 
man must have forever an individuality of character 
of which no other can partake. Others will be one 
with him in celebrating the praise of justifying mercy 
(Bev. V. 11, 12) ; but there is one act of worship in 
which they cannot take part : they cannot sing with 
the justified, " Unto Him that loved us and washed 
us from our sins in His blood ;" and the subjective 



CHARACTER OF BELIEVER8. 281 

difference wliicli hinders them from uniting in this 
song has, as to its ground, a breadth and a length, 
a depth and height, which passes finite knowledge. 

Among men, all but the justified are entire strang- 
ers to virtue. There is to them no alternative, but 
either to be virtuous with that peerless virtue wLich 
is the companion and fruit of justifying grace, or to 
be destitute of the germ and life of virtue. It is com- 
mon to commend the pursuit of virtue, without refer- 
ence to this grace as prerequisite to it — sometimes as 
preparatory to our receiving it ; sometimes not only 
as possible but sufficient without it ; sometimes with 
contempt for it as antagonistic to virtue : But if an 
effect cannot be without its cause, if we cannot have 
sunbeams apart from the sun, neither can man be virtu- 
ous or inherently just, without being already just with 
God, through justification by grace. The first concern 
of man is to accept the Atonement ; to reject it, is to 
love a twofold death — death under the condemnatory 
sentence of immutable law and rectitude, and death 
as to the hope of restoration to rectitude or virtue. 
It is sin refusing to be forgiven, guilt too proud to ac- 
cept of justifying grace ; it is also the foul and bitter 
waters of inborn corruption, refusing to be displaced 
by a well of celestial water springing up into the life 
of everlasting purity and joy. After it may remain, 
what doubtless were before it, activities of conscience 
and natural affection, struggles to be just with God ; 
good works, so called, but no virtue, and no sufficiency 
for virtue ; nay, it necessitates an invigoration of the 
principle of sin, and a new guilt greater than the first. 



282 CHARACTER OF BELIEVERS. 

As to appropriate character in the justified, it has 
been already said that its formation is gradual. Its 
beginning, like that of our natural existence, is ru- 
dimental or embryonic ; its development is often re- 
tarded, sometimes even regressive ; it has to endure 
manifold contentions from within and from without ; 
it is sometimes overborne in its conflicts, and for a 
season seems to be extinct : but it eventually prevails, 
over its adversaries, — through all its changes pro- 
gresses to completion, and at length appears pure 
amid the purities of Heaven, a perfect resemblance to 
the character of Christ. 



1 



XIV.— TRUTH THE SAME AND ALWAYS YOUNG: 

THE OLD IN THE NEW. 

"I write no new commandment unto you, but the 
old commandment which ye had from the beginning. 
Again, a new commandment I write unto you."* It is 
common in popular discourse, to contradict our own 
assertions immediately after making them— to say 
what we go on to deny, or deny what we have just 
said ; we are not, however, in such cases, inconsistent 
with ourselves, nor do we speak inadvertently ; our 
design is to set the thing we speak of into contrast 
with itself, under different aspects. We speak of 
the thing in the second instance, in a different rela- 
tion, or with a different reference from that which we 
intended in the first. The apostle does not contra- 
dict himself, when, after saying, '' I write no new com- 
mandment," he adds, in the following sentence, "Again, 
a new commandment I write." What he wrote was, 
for substance, " the word which the church had had 
from the beginning." It was, therefore, nothing new. 
But yet it was new in a sense, on account of the new 
light w^hich was shining in respect to it ; the new as- 
sociations and enforcements it had received — the 
fullness of meaning which it had been shown to con- 
tain. 

* 1 John ii. 7, 8. 

(283) 



284 THE OLD IN THE NEW. 

There has been but one true religion. There are 
two Testaments ; but the religion they contain is one. 
Christianity, the new commandment of the apostle, is 
but the faith of the antediluvian elders in its maturity 
and completeness. The books of the New Testament, 
in their historical, doctrinal, and ethical details, and 
in their diversified style, diction, examples, illustra- 
tions, are but the perfect edition of a religion, the 
rudiments of which were given to man by his Maker 
near the beginning of his existence j regarding it in 
its date, it was old ; regarding it in the stage of devel- 
opment which it had reached, it was strangely new : 
eye had not seen, ear had not heard it ; the thought 
of it had not entered into the heart of man. 

The apostle might speak of it as new, comparing it 
with itself under the latest of its antecedent forms ; 
those not only of the last of the prophets, and of the 
harbinger of our Lord, but of our Lord Himself, pre- 
vious to His ascension. Even during his personal 
ministry, there was scarcely the twilight of evangeli- 
cal truth, when compared with the full-day brightness 
with which it shone after the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost and of fire. 

Nor have the epithets old and new ceased to be ap- 
plicable to Christianity. There has been progress in 
the knowledge of Christianity — progress from vague- 
ness to precision, from obscurity to splendor, in some 
points — since the days of the apostles. There have 
been no authentic additions to it ; but new represen- 
tations and impressions have been given of it, from 
time to time, in virtue of which it has been itself called 



THE OLD IN THE NEW. 285 

new. At different epochs, it has become almost as 
new as it was at first, in its new manifestations of 
powel", and in the new impressions which men have 
had of it. It was so in the early part of the sixteenth 
century, when its republication by the reformers, was 
as a resurrection of it to the nations of Europe. In- 
deed, at every period of awakening in the church, the 
ancient faith becomes new again. Nay, it is, as it 
were, constantly rejuvenizing itself in the experience 
of individual Christians, to many of whom it seems to 
be always becoming more and more novel. The old, 
primitive word, the same essentially, yesterday, to-day 
and forever, appears to them each day more fresh than 
when it first opened itself to them. It is always re- 
cognized by them as the same old commandment, but 
it has a new aspect ; everything in it looks perfectly 
fresh and young ; its facts, teachings, tendencies, bear- 
ings, relations, influences, are ever and more and more 
new. 

This power of self-rejuvenescence, this old-new, or 
new-old life of our religion, is what makes it a religion 
for all time — for universal man, till the end of the 
world. It would not otherwise have a permanently 
saving power. It does not possess this power, as be- 
ing simply historic, that is to say, not a myth or 
fabulous, but founded in fact ; this is necessary, but 
not sufficient : to meet the wants of man in successive 
generations, Christianity must be unlike other relig- 
ions in two respects — not only in having a ground, as 
they have not, in veritable history, but also in having 
power to renovate and reproduce its ground, so as to 



286 TEE OLD IN THE NEW. 

make it no less real and manifest to others of the re- 
motest times, than it was to those who lived in the 
beginning. The past must return in the present ; 
antiquity must reappear in novelty : a merely historic 
religion is not an available one — does not, cannot 
answer the purpose of religion. Dying man needs a 
Saviour, and one inhabiting the present equally with 
the past, and one, moreover, present to him, and with 
him, as he walks through the valley of the shadow of 
death, more really, more perfectly, than any fellow- 
mortal can be at any time. The ability of the Chris- 
tian history, of the ground-fact of Christianity, to re- 
produce itself in the present, to be always fresh, young, 
palpable, as at first, in the experience of believers, is, 
in truth, its saving ability. Christianity, divine in its 
essence^a divine life, as well as a divine doctrine- 
having its spring in God — and being vitalized and 
sustained by the indwelling Spirit of God — being, 
moreover, not only historic, but the key of history- 
its Author being the Creator and Ruler of the world, 
who orders the events of time with reference to its 
advancement, and to the same end exerts, when He 
pleases, supernatural forces: Hence its permanent 
efficiency as a religion for man ; its antiquity and also 
its perpetual and progressive novelty, its venerable 
age, and also its eternal youth and freshness. 

This two-fold characteristic of Christianity has 
given rise to a principle of classification and division 
in the church. The epithets o?cZand 7ieio, from this, as 
the occasion, have been applied to different classes of 
Christians. Among Christians, as among men, some 



THE OLD IN THE NEW. 287 

are constitutionally conservative, some versatile and 
impulsive : hence antagonisms, " sides," " schools," 
" lights " — one called old from their attachment to the 
oldness, the antiquity of Christianity ; the other 7iew^ 
from their characteristic susceptibility to the power of 
the novelty in which Christianity arrays itself from 
time to time. 

This susceptibility implies no comparison of old and 
new in Christianity itself, no ground or possibility of 
a difference between Christianity at first and after- 
wards, but only a special liveliness or impressibility to 
new manifestations of what is, in itself, old. It im- 
plies no want of interest or delight in the old faith — 
it is, in truth, this delight, this interest itself. The 
novelty, whose power is felt, is not absolute novelty ; 
it is antiquity in novelty ; the new does but reproduce 
the old ; it is the same old Christianity which the 
apostles preached, giving new proofs of its identity, 
and of its invincible, undying, ever-efficient power to 
save. It is not a reproach, it is not weakness, to be 
perfectly alive to novelty, under this idea of it. 
It is honorable to be called new for such a reason, and 
more so than old, if the latter term is to be understood 
in a sense implying that the other is not honorable. 

This nominal distinctiveness has no necessary con- 
nection with sectarianism : that is the bane of Chris- 
tianity, but this, apart from the spirit of sect, is but 
diversity in unity, which in the scheme of the world 
and in Deity itself, is the condition of perfection. In 
veste Ghristi varietas sit, non scissura sit. 



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